By Alex Toole
This past summer, I had the joy of bringing my dog, Scout, to Pine Island. She’s a sweet, quirky creature, and while I had high hopes that she’d fit right in, her start at camp was a little rocky—literally and figuratively. At first, Scout was nervous about all the commotion: the boats, the chanting, the endless parade of enthusiastic kids wanting to pet her. Her response was to bark. A lot. She barked at boats, at campers, at particularly suspicious-looking pinecones. But with each passing day, she found her rhythm. Slowly but surely, she started to relax, learning that camp life wasn’t so scary after all.
Scout’s transformation didn’t go unnoticed. The campers loved her, and she quickly became everyone’s unofficial mascot. For Scout, camp was paradise: endless hours outside, a lake for swimming (her absolute favorite), and new best friends at every turn. It was hard to tell who was more delighted, Scout or the campers watching her leap into the water like she was training for Greased Watermelon. By the middle of the summer, she’d become an expert at greeting campers, lounging in the sun, and helping me during campfire activities, which resulted in one of the summer’s funniest moments.
One night around at Campfire, we decided to play a new game starring Scout. Six campers had to build her a toy using only materials they could find on the beach. The goal? To see which creation Scout would choose to play with. There were a couple of elaborate contraptions made of scrap wood and acorns, one tied together with lengths of found rope, and even a mini “cat sculpture” made of rocks. When it was time for Scout to decide, she trotted through the assortment of handcrafted masterpieces—and chose a plain old stick that a camper had lazily picked up and tossed into consideration, claiming this was their submission to the contest. The laughter was contagious, and Scout, tail wagging, was in her element. That stick? It became her new favorite toy for a few days, until it was gnawed to wood chips.
This article was originally published in the February 2025 edition of The Pine Needle.