Charlie doesn’t really like her choke chain collar. I only started using it recently when my tennis elbow deteriorated to the point where I was loathe to walk the dogs. At least my elbow pain was caused by tennis, and only exacerbated by the dogs yanking my arm out of it’s socket when they pass other dogs or see squirrels or cats on our walks. My sister-in-law, of Loin Cat and Doggie Diaper fame, has tennis elbow FROM her dogs. She doesn’t even play tennis. She’s been suffering for a year, and now puts DMSO on her elbow, something they use for horses. It crosses the blood/brain barrier immediately (like alcohol) so the spot on your skin has to be really clean or your body will absorb whatever is there. We don’t seem to worry so much about the wine… Anyway, Charlie is NOT thrilled when I pull the choke chain collar out of the drawer to put it on her. She wants to walk so badly that she doesn’t bolt when she sees it, just tries to avoid it by turning her head away so I can’t attach the prongs around her neck. We’ve been having this discussion for weeks now, and she can’t understand why because my kids still walk her on the long retractable leash where she can run ahead and sniff and they don’t mind her pulling. Plus she’s super competitive, like everyone else in this family (except Hank) and she HAS to be in front of everyone when she walks. On the choke chain with me she has to stay at my left heel and Hank is allowed to roam ahead, which drives her nuts. Hank is very reliable, he never veers from the sidewalk. Even if he sees another dog, if I say NO or WAIT, he listens, unlike Charlie. She beats to her own drummer. It’s almost torture for her to walk with me now. It’s like my middle daughter running around the pool, the lifeguard yelling “WALK PLEASE!” and waching her change her gait to a racewalk without slowing down, limbs churning in forced restraint. That’s what Charlie looks like when she walks on the choke chain, all leashed energy, ready to break into a dead run at the smallest signal from me.
When I do let her off the leash in the arboretum, she runs for the sheer joy of running, digging her front feet in like a sprinter, her hindquarters pumping like mad to propel her forward. She is like a Greyhound, trapped in a Corgi body. After the initial burst of freedom, she bounds in and out of the trees and bushes, looking for squirrels. Hank and I jog, so she has ample time to cover lots of ground while we pace sedately along. In the fall I often see the UW cross country team sprint past me on the path, boys and girls both. Once Charlie sped after a few of the boys, who stopped to pet her and send her back to me. I said, “It’s okay, she can run with you for a bit. She’ll come back.” A mile later, and almost to the end of the water bridges I still didn’t see her, worried she followed those boys all the way back to the UW. I called for her, and Hank looked at me worriedly. Just then Charlie came tearing around the corner, covered in mud, breathing hard, and smiling like a maniac. And just one look at her face filled with utter happiness made it impossible for me to scold her. How can you be mad at a dog for being a dog? It’s like being mad at a kid for being a kid. Which I’ve done plenty of times, don’t get me wrong. But sometimes when you see the spirit of something, be it animal or human, it can be so pure it feels like singing echoing through your body, restoring one’s faith in the rightness of things. I feel that way watching my kids do what they love. And I feel that way when I watch Charlie run.
Comments