Way out West (incorporating Way up North)

The establishment at The Deep North, where we are temporarily abiding, includes among the inhabitants an elderly black labrador, a retired gun dog in fact. There is also a small lake or large pond, depending on ones point of view. The combination of dog and lake is frequent, and quite enthusiastic (on her part at least), but lately she has developed a new game. She goes diving into the lake, and truffles about in the muddy shallows, her head fully submerged, and her fore-paws raking through the mud. At first the general consensus was that she was turning over rocks in search of crayfish or perhaps some delicious morsels of carrion (labradors have depraved tastes, I will spare you the incident with the not-quite dead yet pigeon). Closer observation has revealed that she is in fact collecting stones, bringing them to the surface and arranging them in carefully chosen places. It is only stones she does this with, sometimes she will emerge from the water with a mouthfull of weed, or a decaying stick, these are contemptuously discarded, and subsequently ignored. Her stone installations, however, are revisited and inspected, presumably in case an art critic has been passing. I can offer no explanation for this behaviour, perhaps, in a household buzzing with creative energy, a little has rubbed off on her.