This morning I heard a strange banging sound coming from the den. Something like a hammer hitting the wall, or a mallet on the floor. Too big a sound to be made by my cat, Butterbean. Too close for an animal outside, like a squirrel or racoon. I went to investigate and found Violet playing with a food puzzle we got at a dog event last weekend. This might not sound noteworthy, but Violet hasn’t played with a toy in quite a while.

You see, Violet is very old. She turns fifteen next week and it shows. Her eyes are rheumy, her fur sparse, her tail thin and sunken between her back legs, which move like marionette parts when she walks.  We still go for walks everyday, but it takes 45 minutes to get around the block because she has to stop every few feet to sniff a flower or take a little rest. As one of my neighbors commented the other day, “She’s an ancient now.”

But not this morning. Last night a cold front moved in, and it’s clear and crisp outside: the first lovely day we’ve had in months, and all the animals in the neighborhood are lively because of it. The dogs are barking, the chickens are crowing, even the insects seem zippier. Something primal in our cells is saying get up and get moving.

Seven calls this phenomenon, “friskidogophobia,” a bastardization of the word, triskaidekaphobia, or fear of the number thirteen. He heard the word when he was younger, and somehow he transformed it into a new word to describe that thing that happens to animals when autumn arrives. I quickly started to employ the word myself, but had to change the -phobia to -philia for my own usage because the phenomenon feels more like love than fear to me.

So today, I do what I do one morning every year around this time: I harken the coming of the new season. Yay! Hooray, it’s finally cool outside, and every sentient creature is rejoicing. Even the ancient ones.