A Good Walk Gone Bad

Some days it’s just not worth putting on one’s collar and leash.

But first, a fashion update.  Because of my sensitive back and neck (I recently had a flare-up which left me limping piteously until a visit to Doc. Petermanm resulted in a week of pain meds), Pa bought me a harness to use rather than a collar on our walks.  I rather like my new harness despite the fact that I was wearing it upside down for my first outing (the part that rests on my back was on my chest and vice versa…it was a tad awkward but luckily I didn’t run into any other dogs to make fun of me) and my family frequently suggests that I be carried around like a suitcase using the handle running along the part on my upper back.

But despite being dressed to the nines, my second walk using my new harness was less than ideal.

When we’re out east, Pa and I enjoy taking frequent quick jaunts up and down the street.  We immediately hang a right out of the driveway and scoot across the street to do some business.  We then walk one house north then switch sides of the street again to leave a message at Flo’s house (Flo is the Golden Retriever who lives two houses down the street).   After that, I pull unsuccessfully toward a wooded area that I’m not allowed to explore due to the threat of ticks, then cut across the street again to sniff the plastic yellow figure holding a flag that reads “children at play” (this was my arch nemesis for the longest time, but now we’re cool).   Once the yellow figure is deemed not dangerous, we turn around and repeat the aforementioned route in reverse before returning home to take a much-deserved nap.   It’s a nice route--short but filled with lots of interesting places to sniff and sometimes I even get Flo in trouble when she starts barking at me from within her house.

But last Saturday, this nice little route became painful.  As I sniffed along Flo’s property line, I suddenly jumped back as if I had come across something nasty like a bug or something that smelled so bad even I didn’t want to roll in it.  After lurching backward, I started limping forward.   This is when Pa got involved.   He knelt down next to me and found, in my front right paw, a giant thorn sticking out from between the pads.

Launching into doctor mode, Pa quickly pulled the thorn out of my paw at which point I found that I could comfortably walk on it again.  And walk I did--straight home.  There was no sniffing around or leaving additional messages.   I wanted to go home and I was not wasting any time getting there.

A cookie, some sympathetic attention from Ma and Sister, and one nap later, I felt much better and hardly traumatized.   In fact, I was feeling so much better about the whole situation that I was even willing to go with Pa on another walk (though I steered clear of Flo’s house just in case).