On the leash

"Let's mess with her head."

Rosie is perfect on walks. She was five months old when we invested in leash training, and it paid off beautifully. She walks next to me, on the right side, and the leash is slack. (Unless there is a rabbit or a cat.) She matches her speed to mine.

The training was a huge pain because it involved not letting her take even one step unless she was at my side, leash loose. I hated the training; it sucked all the joy out of walks and it frustrated her and it meant I couldn't swing along, untrammeled and fast but had to keep stopping and whirling around and making her sit and then telling her walk and then we'd walk two or three steps and she'd tried to pull and I'd have to stop her again.

But oh, it was worth it, every bit of it, because she learned how to walk nicely on the leash and after not that long of a time--a few weeks--there was no more pulling and jerking and I didn't have to get PT for tennis elbow as I did when Riley was younger.

Well, all of that is out the window now.

"I can't believe anyone thinks we are capable of doing wrong."

Because now we have Angus, and Angus doesn't understand the rules of the leash, and he is here and then he's there and then he's behind me and wrapping the leash around my leg and then he's walking directly under my foot and I have to stutter-step to avoid squashing him and if we're on ice, as we often are these days, all bets are off.

And Rosie sees this and decides, what the hell! I guess there are no rules anymore! And she starts meandering off to the left, and grabbing her own leash in her mouth and instituting a game of tug, which she knows damn well she is not supposed to do, especially on ice (she knows damn well that on ice we walk very carefully, almost a simper) and I think it is a good thing that it is the dead of winter and there are very few people out and they cannot hear me swear.

I do, I swear, I mutter, I talk nonstop to the dogs like a crazy person. "Christ on a bike!" I say, and "Goddamn it to hell!" and tonight I actually told them, as they dragged me in a zigzag way down a very icy hill (thanks, St. Paul!) toward Como Lake, "I am just going to chop a goddamn hole in the ice and throw you both in!"

To be fair, when they both walk nicely, which is actually usually more than half the time, it's great. Tonight, for instance, when they behaved, it was a glorious walk. Angus strutted along with his little General Angus S. Grant swagger, and Rosie nudged my hand sweetly for treats and looked at me hopefully, and neighbors have gritted their sidewalks after yesterday's snow so I didn't break my neck, and as we approached the house it started snowing gently, lightly, beautifully. And all was forgiven. Until the next time.