My dog's idea of a date

[cuddlefish]

So the next big plan with me and my therapist is taking walks. Walks to the park that's about a half a mile from my house. The idea is I'll go there, play on the swings a bit and come back, and that'll get me out of the house a little more often and more adjusted to the idea of being out without another person with me. One of the other important things is that I get to give my dog, who doesn't get enough exercise and fun, a walk, if I decide to take her.

Well, today, several different circumstances intersected---it's a nice day out, dad didn't take the dog to the park in the morning, and I wanted to go, so I thought I would go to the park. I put on some jeans and went downstairs to the door. There was the dog. She made that face at me, the one where she holds out her ears and cocks her head. (She KNOWS how cute she looks when she does that, or she thinks she looks cute. I think she looks better when she's not trying.) She wanted to go out with me. Well, who was I to say no? Taking her was part of the whole idea, after all. I opened the door just to make sure she was sure, and she started towards it, so I got the leash and put it on her. And so we began, ambling across the lawn.

I was afraid at first it would be like last time. Last time, she had been out running around the neighborhood all day and she was too tired to go any farther than two houses down the street. She'd spent a lot of time sniffing everything in sight, especially when I gave her a treat. She would crunch on it, and she knew bits of it would fall to the ground, so she had to spend anywhere from a 30 seconds to a whole minute sniffing the ground every time I even gave her a quarter of a treat.

But it wasn't quite like last time. We moved along fairly quickly. She still had her nose to the ground, the way beagles should, but she wasn't meandering and sniffing everything. I gave her a treat at the first house, and she went nuts on the ground, trying to find every molecule of food. Then she scooted. On the pavement. My dog was wiping her butt with concrete. Well, whatever, better than in the house. Oh, but there were people across the street, and they were walking, too. A mom and three kids. I hoped they hadn't seen Mosey scooting.

If she did they hadn't said anything. They said hi to me, so I said hi and kept walking. But the dog, she stopped and sat down. Was she getting ready to scoot again? The woman asked me what the dog's name was. I told her. She thought it was Rosy or something, like everyone else. I looked at Mosey, and pulled on her leash. She got up. While I was looking at Mosey, the woman had decided the conversation had ended, and she didn't talk any more. We went on.

Mosey kept wandering over people's lawns. I guessed she liked walking on them better than the pavement, which was maybe too hard for her arthritic feet. She wandered over the LeBlanc's lawn, then over the driveway, then to the other side of the lawn. She stopped, sniffing the ground very thoroughly. I recognized the signs that she was getting ready to do something on the lawn, and I stopped too. If she took a dump on a neighbor's lawn, I'd feel bad, but I also knew there was nothing I could do now that she'd stopped, and anyway my family didn't like the LeBlancs. I looked up at the house with an apologetic grimace on my face, hoping nobody was watching my dog pee on their lawn.

We moved on, but we were going more slowly than we were before. Mosey was sniffing everything again, and she was wandering away from me. At least she wasn't stopping. Or---yes, now we were stopping again. Mosey hunched over, and she got ready to pee again. Again? This was kind of often. Was she marking her territory? She meandered again, sniffing, and this time we were pointing back the way we came. I remembered that we were across the street from a house where another dog lived. This was the strip of grass where that dog was brought to do her stuff. So Mosey was leaving messages for her doggy friend. She hunched over again, for a long time this time. I tried to pull on her leash, feeling guilty, and she wouldn't move. I sighed and pulled out a treat. I held it out to her. C'mon, a treat! No response. She was sniffing again.

She was moving back the the direction we came. "Are we done already?"

"Yeah, just a second. Yeah, okay, we're done. C'mon, Pocky."

"But I brought you treats and everything!"

"Nope we're going home."

"..."

On the way back she scooted on the pavement again.

But don't let anyone tell you I don't love my dog. I took her out for a walk to the end of the street, where she peed and left messages for Alexa, and then when I came back, I gave her a doggy biscuit the size of her head just for her trouble. I want her to remember that walks with Robin means doggy treats, even though I don't really plan on taking her again.

And the best part is, instead of bringing the dog back to the house and going out again to get my walk in while the weather is nice, I decided to stay here and write in my journal about how much I love that stupid animal I live with. Mosey, by the way, insists that she is not an animal but a dog. And she calls me Pocky.

Should I play Harvest Moon or Xenosaga first? Xenosaga is the first one, Harvest Moon is Save the Homeland.