Dogs

Part 3: The happiness of dogs far outweighs the poop. 


The dogs are ready to go before she slides back the bolt.
‘Stay…’ She checks her pockets for the roll of poo bags. ‘It’s not the best part of the walk,’ she confides, ‘but: necessary. Heel!’
They surge out like one many-legged animal, some kind of dog-centipede, jostling behind her, till they reach the field and she lets them roam. She loves the way they plunge nose to grass, as though the field is brand new to them.

The dog pen re-secured, Claire fetches the hand trowel, a trug for collecting weeds and a straw hat to shade her eyes. The earth is soft to touch, lightly damp, warm, aerated. Sometimes a welcome shelter of cloud drifts between her and the sun. She watches the cloud shadow cross the yard, wonders where it will go from here. The trug is filled and lugged to the compost box, once, twice, many times; she sets herself a rhythm of work; loses herself in it until her stomach tells her it might be an apt time for ingesting lunch.



Comments

Lynn Proctor said…
i am trying to remember this--as we don't have a dog at this time--but may be thinking about it in the near future--i have always had dogs in the past :)
4 April 2013 at 14:21
Suze said…
There is a deep deepness to this life Claire is leading that I think most the harried moderns lack and, somewhere where it counts, crave.
4 April 2013 at 15:43
Misha Gerrick said…
This reminds me of my dogs. They act like this whenever they get taken on walks.

:-D
4 April 2013 at 18:43
Geo. said…
"The happiness of dogs far outweighs the poop." My own life-experience compels me to accept this as an axiom.
5 April 2013 at 03:22
Lisa Southard said…
Many thanks for thoughtful comments dear readers. Have just returned from a dog walking session, so am full of canine joys :-)
5 April 2013 at 14:45
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ghost Dog And The Wobbles Of Progress

Image
‘1/1/22 Saturday Last night just before midnight, we strolled down the dark lane, wine glasses in hand; spotted constellations, watched distant fireworks. This morning Dog had done several splats of foulness on the living room carpet. HNY! Also this morning: In bed, chinking coffee cups, we say- what will this year bring? We hope it’s a track and a toilet shed.’ Well, we have a track on our land, all the way from top to bottom gate. It’s not as finely finished as we’d hoped, but it is here. We have a toilet shed, and it’s not the quality lumber we had hoped for, but it is built, and it will suffice. Everything is layering up, however slow or wonky: up! There were, too, events that we did not foresee or hope for. The van engine blew up. We can’t fix it. No one wishes to buy it, at least not yet. It will be utilised as a winter shelter on our land until a better idea/miracle arrives. A painful chunk of land fund went to buy a replacement vehicle, which is much cheaper to run so there is
Read more

Winterlove

Image
On this bitter cold morning we wake, expecting the heavy frost yet no less delighted, no less surprised. Coffee and coats and boots are employed for warmth. We venture outside, we pour up and down the garden, exclaiming each treasure found- Spider webs are made of barbed crystals! The sky above is cornflower blue, the greenery bold as summer but ice edged, bejewelled. The horizon lost in mist. Only here exists. Mr and me, like two oversized children, our fingers stabbed with cold, are easing ice shapes out of containers; we are stacking the shapes into ice sculptures, making oosh noises of hurt, and ahh noises of joy: it’s beautiful! It’s alien! My poor fingers! Because ice melts, we seize the moment. See how impermanence is pain and wonder? See how it drives us into discovery? See how impermanence is the extraordinary in the ordinary? Every day there is something that you will never see again - it’s that, or never hold it in your sight at all. Every day there is something that you w
Read more

Eulogy For Dog

Image
We had wanted a puppy and while at 10 months old she was not quite that, we saw her in the rescue home and we knew she was right for us. She was a liver and white Springer Spaniel, real name Midi (not too big, not too small) with a slender, tentative form. I respected her privacy so online she was known as Dog- many of you, Dear Readers, have watched her grow up with us, and will be sorry to learn that her adventures have ended now: please read on, come with us, it will be okay. The hesitancy young Midi Spaniel held towards her new home was reserved for indoors. Outdoors she was absurdly reckless, usually clumsy. She pelted over barbed wire, through thorns, jumped five bar gates; she threw herself into the sea, the river, the lake, the muddy puddles, rolled merrily in dung- she hated the bath. She did not much care for the company of other dogs, though with persistence she learned tolerance, and once fell in reciprocal love. She adored children. Children could be trained to play fetch
Read more