Spirit Leads

We’ve been staying in a small apartment for about a month in between selling one house and buying another. Although all of us are pretty sick of the tight quarters, our dog Spirit has been suffering the most. When we were at our old house, she’d spend many hours out in the backyard, either chasing squirrels or just watching the world go by. Even though she can run like lightning, she enjoys just sitting and watching birds and squirrels, and I guess the wind in the trees. She has a very curious nature; whenever we go for a walk she will stop and stare at people she hasn’t seen before. I’ve been suspicious for some time now that the dog is smarter than me in some ways.

The other night about midnight it started raining buckets, and that is not just an expression if you live in Oklahoma. It didn’t stop until just before lunch this morning. We took her out for a quick break, but she is scared of thunder and ran back in. So after the rain stopped I knew she needed a long walk, and I thought it would be fun to see what would happen if I let HER decide where we were going. Normally, as the human, I dictate where we are to walk, such as on sidewalks and paths (generally in straight lines), and I also determine when we are going back. The only time she decides is when I let her off the lead in certain areas where I know she will be safe. Although she comes when called, when she sees a squirrel she loses her mind and will chase it right into traffic. Normally, without “squirrel on the brain,” this is a dog that looks both ways before crossing the street.

This experiment required that I set certain rules for myself. I would try to leave some slack in her flexi-line as much as possible. I would only intervene if she started to go into the street at the wrong time. I would not talk to her or give her any directions or commands. I would just follow. This turned out to be a lot harder than I had thought.

Once we got out the front door I just stood still and waited. She kept looking up at me wondering why I wasn’t walking. After a little bit she started walking, but she still kept looking back at me. It didn’t take long for her to realize that I had turned over the reins, and she made a quick bee line to a big field next to our apartment. From there she headed straight for Reeves Park. I remembered that she had tugged toward the park numerous times since we’ve lived here, but I had never wanted to go. We had to cross a busy street to get there. Spirit stopped at the edge of the road and started looking both ways, and then we proceeded on down the road that runs south of the park in a straight line. We were heading for a group of buildings that are probably run by the City Parks department; I wondered why this was so interesting to my dog. I had to resist the temptation to take the reins back as I looked longingly over toward the grassy park and trees. She continued on in a straight line until we arrived at a spot of land behind one of the park buildings with a big tree in the middle. We came to a stop by the tree, and the dog sat down, looked up at the tree, and then looked at me. I then realized that we were standing in the middle of a small stone labyrinth. It was just the other day that I had been thinking how nice it would be to be able to walk a prayer labyrinth, and now today I found myself in the middle of one with my dog. I remembered reading something in the paper when I first moved to town about a group working to get a labyrinth in a local park. I had just not paid enough attention at the time to find it.

As soon as blurted out, “It’s a labyrinth!” we moved on at a quick pace. From this point forward, it became clear to me that what a dog thinks is a good walk and what a human thinks of as a good walk are two totally different outings. I found myself having to decide over and over again to keep to my intention of letting Spirit lead. We found every dumpster within a mile radius. There was standing water in the park, sometimes over a half a foot deep, and we tromped right thought it. It turns out that left to her own devices, my dog just walks straight through it all with style. There was no effort to go around the mini lakes in the park. At one point I came to and realized that I was standing in half a foot of water near a huge dumpster at the back of the park, and I wondered if anyone saw me what they would think I was doing back there! Sidewalks were no longer necessary; we went in a random zig-zag fashion through the entire park led entirely by Spirit’s sniffer. Sometimes she would go under fences, and I would either have to go under or over, usually without a lot of time to decide which option to take. It was around this point, about an hour into this experiment, that I realized how much fun I was having playing with my dog. I’d forgotten all about real estate agents, HUD statements, mortgages, and my mini-van taxi service. I wasn’t even thinking about YOGA (gasp!).

It was time for me to try to take the reins and head back, so I broke the silence and said, “We have to go home now Spirit.” Here is the greatest part. The dog turns around and starts heading back to the apartment in a straight line. She made her way to the closest sideway and proceeded in the human fashion back home. Evidently she’s known the difference between a human walk and a dog walk for some time, and can make it work either way. When the Sprit leads you never know where you’ll end up. In my case, I ended up very muddy.