Walking the Master

When your mindfulness guru is the one with the fur and fleas (MM1)

Here is an essay I wrote in the 2000s about our beloved dog, Laddie (1995-2008). Some form of it may work its way into future drafts of Exit 9, but for now, while I work on Mile Marker 2, consider it as an interlude under Mile Marker 1: Being Present.

“When Laddie takes me for a walk, nothing goes unnoticed.”

My apologies to Kip across the street.  How often was Kip the victim of my gloating jibes to my children:  “See—that’s why we don’t have a dog!”

Because rain or shine, summer’s steam or winter’s snow, Kip would be out every morning, 7:25-7:40 to be exact, walking the family border collie, Joy, before heading to work. 

He was a heaven-sent defense against our children, who pleaded relentlessly with all their well-intentioned promises:  “I’ll walk him every day!” “I’ll feed him!” “I’ll play with him! I promise!” “Sure you would,” we said, knowing those intentions were as reliable as the air they floated on.  

Something went wacky with my husband one Christmas, however. He came home with an 8-week old Lab mix, without my permission. I might as well have brought home a new baby and said, “Oh, but I couldn’t resist! He was so cute. And the kids will love him.” I was not pleased.

But I admitted the little yellow pup sure was cute.

Laddie was a nervous pup, unsure of his captors, and so in the middle of his first night with us he threw up on his doggie blanket. Being a mother of four, I had already determined he might need his new “mom,” so I was already on the couch nearby, ready to pull him up, close to me, which I did. We both fell back asleep. And bonded.  

Soon Kip and I were waving to each other every morning, although my shift in the park adjacent to our house was slightly later than his.  The kids soon abdicated their promises to do all the walking with lame excuses like having to go to school, it was mostly just Laddie and me in the morning.  And I wondered which neighbors were gloating from their cozy kitchens. 

But, curiously, soon I realized it was not me walking Laddie in the morning. Laddie was walking me. When Laddie takes me for a walk, he looks carefully at everything— sniffing it, examining it.   He walks purposefully and aimlessly at the same time in a way that only dog can. There are some things he examines with both curiosity and trepidation, like the newly-placed port-o-johns at the baseball field. But they don’t go unnoticed. Nothing goes unnoticed. This is how he’s teaching me.   

Without the walks Laddie takes me on every day I would never notice that some mornings are steely gray; some are eggshell blue.  I would never hear the honking of geese, and the thuddy spring sound that the bullfrongs in the creek make. I would never have walked happily in the rain without worrying about getting my hair wet. I wouldn’t have the opportunity to emblazon the lime green of spring, the verdant green of summer, the firey hues of fall or ice blue cast of winter into my daily life. 

If Laddie never took me for a walk, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to clear my mind and let it drift in a way that would result in ideas and thoughts and plans that I’d eventually execute at work or home. During our walk, ideas waft in and out of my mind as surely and imperceptibly as waves at low tide, but this only happens when Laddie takes me for a walk. Otherwise, there’s no time in my day for idea-wafting.

Now, sometimes Laddie is curled up under the bed sleeping but I’ll have that urge. I’ll stand by the door and look at him expectantly. He’ll try to avoid my gaze. Then I’ll rattle his leash, and he’ll go eat some kibbles and try to ignore me. Then I’ll whine a little, “Laddie, want to go out?” I will be half asking, half pleading. He’ll sigh and let me snap on his leash. And as we head out the door, with my tail wagging, I could swear he says under his breath, “OK, girl, come on. I know you have to go out!”