Walking the dog around the block is a half mile. Although this isn’t a long distance, it is better than nothing.
For the first 20 yards the dog leaps and jumps against the leash as she tries to take the lease into her mouth so she can take herself for a walk. She’s very excited and pulls down to the first corner. Rounding the corner, she sniffs in assessment of who has passed by recently. She’s very aware of where we are going, she’s very happy to be out she takes her first pee.
There is a particularly delicious smelling patch of grass so she pulls hard on her leash to get to it. She whines when she hears dogs across the street bark her. She checks out of the juniper bushes in the Parkway, seeing if there’s any squirrels rabbits that have occasionally darted out onto the sidewalk in previous walks. A dachshund goes by and as we walk by, she turns back looking over her shoulder hoping to have interaction.
We get to a nice bit of green grass where she does her business. The Santa Barbara News Press bags are really good for this pick-up task. We walk along past the park and past our neighbors who are watering their lawns. When the dog sniffs everything I’m reminded that this is the equivalent to her checking her Facebook page. We come up on our neighborhood doves that hang out in front of this one house on a route. They are white doves and sometimes they are down on the ground which excite the dog greatly.
As we round the last corner, I can take the leash off. She is not wild an can walk into the house with a smile on her face.
The kids use to take her for a walk everyday so she used to have a daily mile walk. Now it’s just me and I feel a little guilty that I don’t take her for a longer walk. I return a little refreshed and ready to work again.
