A Walk in the Woods with Some Dogs

I sneaked away to our house in Lovell this weekend with Theo.  I wasn't escaping Kanha, who, lucky angel, was on her own get-away in upstate NY with her good pal Selena and family.  I was escaping my desk.  It's Memorial Day weekend, and with the annual Conference I run coming up in just a few days, I should be yoked to my computer, producing registration lists and organizing nametags.  

But Becky and Jonathan, the newlyweds, and my brother Dan and his son Griffin, were heading north to the family house to check out a boat we might buy, so I figured I would join them for just one night.  We had a lovely evening, taking the boat out for a spin, eating burgers from the grill, watching the four dogs tumbling about, catching up on the gossip, sucking the stillness of this house in the woods into our beings in an attempt to carry it back to the craziness of our lives.

The next morning, with Dan and Griffin gone late the night before and the newlyweds sleeping in, I took the dogs for a walk.  There were only three  by now  (Isaac, my brother's golden retriever had left with his family) -- Theo and two other mutts:  West, Becky and Jonathan's beagle/lab rescue who Theo looks up to, literally and figuratively, and Gouda, their friends' puppy, who is the perfect  playmate.  Gouda's  adoption agency called her Havanese but she looks like a chubby white Chihuahua with ears pointed straight for the sky.  She's clearly Theo's type -- both spayed, they still couldn't keep their paws off of each other.  

So out we trooped, Theo's grandma and the three dogs.  We had one leash, one collar (on Theo), and no bug spray, all of which made for a potentially treacherous stroll.  But I moved faster than the bugs (for the most part..), the dogs kept up (well, West had a little trouble until he did number 2 in the woods -- with a lighter load his step lightened significantly), and we made it all the way to the end of our one mile road and back with nary an incident.  All three dogs gathered near me when they heard the engine of each of the 3 cars we passed in our 40 minute walk and Theo only got side-tracked by a chipmunk once but quickly rejoined his mentor and girlfriend when he realized they were sticking by me.  The birds chirped -- a low wolf whistle, a cawing call to a friend -- and the squirrels' tails rustled the low leaves just off the road.  Vistas of the lake popped out between the houses as we passed, water calm and shiny, this little world in the Maine woods at peace.  

The dogs were tired when we got back but I felt better.  Ready to return to the city, and my desk, bringing a piece of the peace with me.