Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Grand Old Boy
Swirl disappeared at the dog park today.
He often lags behind when he’s become enamored with a particular root or pile of animalness. But because we regularly turn around to see where he is and don’t move along until we see his white coat in the trees, he’s never disappeared for long.
Today, I was walking with my friend, Karen, and her two dogs, a very large muscular unknown breed dog with a remarkably wrinkled face and a small beagle-type dog who was, today, wearing a blue sweater with a white daisy on the back.
Punchy was with us, of course, as is always the case. He trots faithfully behind, his tags jingling like little Christmas bells because of the side-to-side way he trots. It’s a sled dog thing.
When Swirl didn’t show up, we retraced our steps on the path. This is a large dog park with multiple paths and wooded areas, so there were many ways he could’ve gone. The park is also unfenced and at the corner of two somewhat busy roads. Swirl’s never gone near the road before so there was no reason to think he’d do that today but, in my mind, he was already laying flattened on the concrete.
I comforted myself that I would’ve heard brakes screech if someone had run over him. In which case I’d have to throw myself in front of the next semi to come by, a thought I immediately dismissed as being overly dramatic and not helpful to the task of finding him.
Of course, finally, I rounded a bend in the path and there he was a couple of hundred yards away and when I called him, he galloped toward me, and it was beautiful like a scene out of Lassie Come Home. He seemed glad, exuberant and wild, not like he’d been lost and was grateful to have been found, but because he was glad to see us – me and Punchy. His was the galloping that comes from all being right with the world.
There would be no hours of searching or throwing of oneself in front of a semi. Swirl was found and it made for a grand day.
12 Comments on “Grand Old Boy”
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I’m so glad that Swirl found you. He knew that you didn’t like being lost in the dog park. Good boy!
I was getting very worried….and that hasn’t happened before. So, yes, I’m glad he found me!
In many ways, walking our last dog, who wend deaf, was more challenging than walking the one before her, whose glaucoma eventually took his sight. When I walked Basil (the blind one) I wore a bell around my neck so he could follow without having to be on a lead. Pickle, who went deaf, loved to take her own path and always came back when called, but once she couldn’t hear us calling her wandering became a problem – especially on forest walks. She probably wondered how we’d all lost our voices at the same time.
You know….I’m starting to wonder who’s walking who here.
Pickle always did like to explore, but she always caught up with us – when she knew where we were. Still miss our old Staffie
We live on a road that does not have heavy traffic. There are no roads around here with heavy traffic, but our road gets a few cars passing sometimes. The trouble is that when there IS a car, it is usually coming up from Rhode Island at an insane speed. Local people who live here drive slowly because this is a residential street and all our mailboxes are on the road — with no sidewalks OR streetlights.
No one seems able to grasp that families with children and pets LIVE here and there are dangerous turns, some banked the wrong way. In fact, there are many fatal accidents on this route. I live in a state of semi-paranoid fear that -Duke will get out through a gate and one car will hit HIM. We used to have signs on both gates “DO NOT OPEN GATE!” We replaced this with BEWARE OF DOG signs on the theory that maybe if they were scared, they’d stop opening the gates.
We have failed. Everyone ignores the signs. Duke is such a friendly dog, they all LOVE him. I wish they would love him less AND LEAVE THE GATES CLOSED. Come to the ungated door. You know. The red one with the doorbell?
This is one dog park with no fences – I’ve always worried about it but our dogs stay pretty close until…..yesterday. So, rethinking it.
Whew! The suspense was taking a toll on me.
Ditto. Of course, I’d played out the worst possible scenario. I’m way too attached to that dog.
I don’t think it’s possible to be too attached.
Happy ending! I am so glad Jan. I’ve never encountered a dog park that was not fenced in some way. Seems a bit reckless also given the nearness of traffic.
You’re right. Normally, they do fine. But this disappearance thing was totally unnerving. Rethinking.