Bowie’s Few Minutes of Freedom

Do you ever have those occasions when — after the horse has cantered gleefully out the barn door — you wish your “thinking fast” part of the brain had given way to the “thinking slow” area. . . but maybe at lightning speed? A fifteen minute ungraceful lurching through the still deep snow this morning was a result of one of those moments.

As much as my two dogs Mona and Bowie enjoy our daily walks, the restrained pace is a poor substitute for the freedom to run unhindered. These days they rarely have such opportunity (especially with the amount of snow that keeps getting dumped on us), so today — because the surface is just hard enough for them to run across without breaking through — I tried to simulate the experience as best I could by placing each of them on a long lead and running beside them up our private road. If you have dogs, you can probably relate to this: as soon as I began running, they thought, oh, fun, let’s play chase. The first obstacle, literally, was a maple tree that they decided to encircle with their long leashes. My solution was to follow behind. . . and go round and round as they continued round and round. This moment was the first in which it would have been wise to pause for a moment, reflect on alternatives to chasing two dogs round and round a tree.

Having successfully liberated the maple tree, we returned to our backyard, where I was able to pry the gate open to our new, fenced-in garden area. After unclipping my two excited pups, I sat on my bench and watched them chase each other and wrestle with all the freedom they could wish for. Their joy made me smile.

When I decided playtime was over, I clipped the two pups back on their leashes and headed out through the gate. That move was a signal to resume the game of chase and wrestle, or rather, chase and wrestle-wrestle-wrestle, quickly converting two dogs and two leads into something resembling a tumbleweed. Seeing that one of the leashes was wrapped around one of Bowie’s back feet, I reflexively — and here’s where I would have enjoyed the benefits of slow (rational) thinking — unclipped his leash BEFORE grabbing his collar. Thus freed, he dashed off across the yard, the leash having miraculously fallen away from his foot and the rest of his body. As Mona strained to join her brother at the end of a now tangled skein of two leashes, I set off in pursuit of the wily Bowie. By now, he was nearly to my neighbor’s front door, but he suddenly had second thoughts. I used his indecision as an opportunity to flip the script. I’m not proud of it, but I essentially dangled Mona as bait.

Oh, Mona, aren’t you just the best little doggie?! Let’s go play! And I ran with her toward our house. She, of course, was thrilled, thinking she was about to have Mommie to herself. She bounded along and bounced up and down. Bowie streaked straight as an arrow right at us. I threw myself at him as soon as he was close enough. Collapsing in the snow, we were now our own contorted arrangement, and both of us were breathing hard. I had no back-up plan if I had failed — it’s doubtful you can pull that trick a second time. A subdued trio then climbed the front yard and re-entered the house. God, I hope all my neighbors didn’t just witness that.

So, I’ve signed up Bowie for boot camp. It can’t come soon enough.