The Walk

The Walk tonight was an awe inspiring spiritual trek. The Florida heat has finally dissipated so that I no longer feel like a polar bear in a Bikram yoga class. The soft breeze cut the cadence and stench of Nicholas’ rapid fire farts. To top it off, the diabetic Corgi on the corner left us a long message on one of our favorite pee poles.

I am somewhat distracted from the Walk and all of life by my mentee kitten, Lola. I worry that she has not had her head squeezed in my mouth enough times tonight. How will she ever find her way in the world? I must, however, not let my responsibility erode my commitment to the ongoing Stink Taxonomy research, or my sworn vow to sneak up on Nicholas while he is sleeping and bark in his ear.

The Walk

The Walk seemed to take forever to transpire tonight. Without temporal abilities, I am at a loss to explain why, but we waited and waited and still it did not come. Nicholas had some cockamamie theory about the earth’s relationship to the sun at this time of year, but to tell you the truth, I pretty much zone out when he starts going on one of his rants.

Once it finally started, the night was splendid. The moon was full, and for a few minutes a few hesitating clouds obscured, then released it into the charcoal sky. It is great to be a dog.

The only issue we had tonight was that a motorcycle came rumbling down the street towards us and I could not resist a half-hearted lunge at it as it passed. I was, however, able to resist any conversation with the suicidal Chihuahua on the corner.

The Walk - well almost

We have been summarily imprisoned this evening as soon as we attempted to ward off the intruders brashly knocked on the front door. To add insult to injury these intruders are apparently small people for whom the Lady with the Leash not only shows no animosity, but instead rewards with various edible sundries of ransom. It makes absolutely no sense, but analytical reasoning has never been The Lady with the Leash’s strong suit.

My scientific pursuits continue. While our Walk has changed in its trajectory and pattern, I have decisively identified all of the germane stinks in our vicinity and am in the process of categorizing them. It has been strenuous and thankless work, but I am nearly ready to publish my findings, some of which will most certainly cause a stir in the canine community.

Ah, it is time for the Walk. Finally. I shall take my leave from you dear canine reader, but I shall note every detail.

The Walk

The night was so perfect tonight. Everywhere we looked we saw stars and cats and cats and stars….both were so luscious that I could not resist celebrating with a whoop and a yelp. It really would be sacrilege not to observe and celebrate the miracles that the universe outstretches to us.

Our walks in the evening have gotten much better in the past weeks. I have had a consistent and worthy study environment in which to continue my experimentation with the Stink Taxonomy and am happy to report that I’ve not had a false positive identification in over 6 days.

I’ve been in contact with several canine mental health agencies recently to try to find solutions to Nicholas' obvious mental health “challenges”, but the consensus is that he is just a weird dog and we may just need to deal with him. I don’t think that he had a very pleasant puppyhood, unlike mine which was nearly perfect except for the fact that I did not like to be left alone. Come to think of it, that was pretty terrifying….and it ended about when Nick came along….maybe I should just suck it up and paint his toenails for him.

The Walk

The Walk has taken many sinewy turns as of late. For some reason, the walk has become much longer than it used to be, and now we go all sorts of great places. While we are not really sure why this is, we are always the beneficent recipients and are most thankful. It is stunning to me that there are so many different directions in which to walk. Nicholas and I agree that if we were left to our own devices we would do nothing but walk.

This morning I very nearly caught an arrogant squirrel. If there is one thing that I cannot stand, it is being mocked and these dastardly rats do nothing but tease and cajole us every morning. Had I not been mercilessly tethered to that little pork pie, Nicholas, I would have chomped some squirrel tail. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

The Walk

Serendipitously, Smelly Foot Man joined us on The Walk tonight. The coolness of these nights makes me feel absolutely alive. My alacritous nose spins and wanders at the disparate scents that transcend the strange and moist dank. I dance from side to side, bumping and buoying Nick in clever and compelling sideswipes.

He needs to remember that The Walk is not: how tasty cat food is or his god-awful Manifesto or the bones we have buried in the back yard. While I know he enjoys It, he really must grow to view The Walk as a transcending and liberating experience, rather than just something that happens after a lot of other things do not.

I want every creature in the living world to be sniffed, classified and made aware of how happy I am to be alive. Life is joy…..

Don’t you think that we should all have a little more Walt? I was going to quote the very beginning, but the ending is probably more appropriate—to the Dead Poets:

........................................................ ............................................................ ....

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab
and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

The Walk

Every so often, the Lady with the Leash forgets her squeamishness and walks us in the pouring rain. It is the only kind of bath that I like, and one of the very few things upon which Nicholas and I agree: it is rare, not that many dogs get to do it, and all the smells change.

The rain pelts the sidewalk in front of us, and we can barely see to the next house; cars pass slowly, headlamps still lit long after the sun should be up, wipers whapping out their metronomic song. We are drenched: rain drips down my snout.

It is just the three of us, and suddenly I have this moment of perfect clarity in which I comprehend what the Walk, and ergo the Universe, actually is. It is just this, nothing more or less: A Lady with a Leash walking two dogs, one black, one white in a rain storm-- the Universe is Us at any moment in time, and so is the Walk.

---pax, caritas et intellectus

The Walk

I have come to the conclusion that The Stink Taxonomy might have serious flaws. On our walk tonight I positively identified the Bamboo Lemur on Madison Street in my stink assessment. The only problem with this is that the Bamboo Lemur is indigenous only to Madagascar. See Bamboo Lemur

Nicholas was laughing his head off and he peed on my head to celebrate. He loves to pee on my head. If he were not so committed to barking at anyone who dares to transcend our territory, I would bust his chops more often.

As far as the accuracy of the Stink Taxonomy goes, perhaps this is a set back. I hope that I am not seen as some kind of quack because of this new evidence. I could have sworn that I sniffed and tabulated exactly the Bamboo Lemur. Perhaps my nose needs calibration. February is Vet month for me, so I will perhaps see if I cannot get the old schnausser looked at.

The Walk

Sometimes the Lady with the Leash’s erratic and unpredictable behavior can be fun. Usually it bothers me, as I am an organized and regimented dog, but we never really know what to expect from her, but this morning it worked to our benefit. We were leashed and walking as the sun was coming up. I thought that we would walk forever….and everywhere we went was virgin territory…we felt like we were the first and only dogs in the universe (including the Dogon star system.)

We had only one altercation with a pompous, overweight Beagle. I tried to be good, but Beagles have such vile mouths on them. If humans understood what they were saying, all Beagles would be put to sleep immediately. My excellent manners preclude repetition of this dog’s sentiments in this forum.

The rest of the day was excellent as well. We got cat food mixed in with our yucky dog food, so I am a happy beast.

The Walk

The Lady with the Leash is quite a wimp when it comes to cold, wet nights. The walks happen, but they nearly always end in walkus interuptus. She thinks we don’t notice, but we would have to be brain damaged cats not to.

Here is what she does: first we exit as usual and start on our usual circuit. After a little bit, she turns us around and we walk back past the house in the other direction about as far as we went in the first direction. Then we turn around again and come home. The lack of closure is quite irritating and she seems oblivious to our blatant acts of defiance and protest. I know The Walk. The Walk is my friend. And that, my friends, is not a Walk.

Nicholas and I have brainstormed ways to help her over this obvious defect of character. We, afterall, live in Florida; and if she cannot handle the cold here, how do you suppose she would do in Nunavut or Moosonee to name a couple of colder options than here....

We have come up with a fool-proof plan! We shed pounds and pounds of fur each day. We view it as a cash crop, while the Lady with the Leash and Smelly Foot Man stomp around the house complaining about the filthy mess we re-create each day the same way they complain about the rich fertilizer that we bestow on the back yard. Anyway, we plan to collect the fur, and with the spinning wheel that Nicholas has purchased off Ebay, weave it into warm wool from which we will create a warm coat. It should not take too long, and then She will have no excuses.

Otherwise, The Walk proceeded as usual. “Neither out far, nor in deep,” as the say.