The serious happiness beaming from the eyes of my rampaging companion can’t be denied or bottled as she pounds down the snowbound slope, narrowly missing knocking this over-opinionated writer flat onto my ever-opinionated face. It was supposed to be a simple physical therapy walk for the recovering me — a half-mile walk four times a day.
But, instead, it has turned into one of those stampeding cattle scenes from an old western as I try and experience Dogs on Patrol!
Usually, I have a retinue of one dog on patrol, but today there are three free-spirited souls, flying, kicking, rolling, chomping the snow and air, and reveling in their freedom.
But still, they are on a walk with me and they know how far to push the roaming envelope. For most of the journey, they have acted like regular dogs doing their regular job when on patrol, snoots pointed earnestly to the ground. They bounce along with their merry dog patrol grins and happy bulging eyes. What is more fun than walking without a leash, along a country road with only their own doggie agenda to drive them? They are so close to the ground, they are masters of all they survey. This is their favorite thing in the world, even better than treats. No leash, accompanying me, but on patrol.
Not above a sudden rollover to scratch their backs in the snow or the grass — paws paddling against the sky — to the cacophony of their riotous smiles. Anything their soggy, doggie minds might conjure on a split-second impulse.
Bliss is staying in range of the group but choosing your own doggie path, finding your own treasures in all sorts of intriguing holes, stumps, bushes, roots. Moles, vols, frogs, mice — let’s just say critters.
As long as it either moves, runs or smells. To dogs on patrol, that’s all that matters. If it reeks of a pig or goat poop pile, they’re all over it. A single dog is enough to be on patrol. She takes her assignment very seriously, chunking along at her own determined pace, a nose and eye always peeled for change — either in odor or movement from her roadside brush screen. Flash! She is off in a single bound into the unknowable ground cover. May a bird take flight, a squirrel dive for a tree trunk, a mole shrink into its winter home — she just wants action! Never disappointed if she misses, it’s the chase that matters — the leap, the lunge, the chomp of the missing bite. and then the quick return to the guiding legs of the approving walker: me.
Never missing a beat, her look says: I meant to do that, I’m a dog. It’s the same look if she comes up when a critter or some truly revolting wet dirty sludge hangs from her mouth. All in a days work, boss.
And then, ever so quickly, back on patrol. I’ve learned not to meddle too much — what difference would it make, anyway?
Their attention is instantly riveted by their low-altitude view and they are back to their hypnotized dog patrol trance.
How do I know being on patrol is their favorite thing, better than treats, better than curling up asleep at my feet? Well, two things, really. The first is their jaws, which drop down and that goofball grin appears as their little legs skitter along in their accelerated but controlled patrol pace. It’s completely involuntary, the grin, because they are in poochie heaven. No marching orders, no leashes, no agenda, no responsibilities — they are free birds, breathing deeply, practically humming to themselves. The second is the feeling I, the walker, gets when I stop along the way and a fuzzy head appears right under my hand. The connection just then feels so right and the loving pal just stands there to prolong the grateful moment. It feels like a self-patting dog. But why wouldn’t it? They love me.
After all, anything’s possible when they’re pooches on patrol.