I know that I should probably be walking my dog twice each day. He’s a 70+ pound, lab mutt, with high anxiety and copious amounts of energy to burn.
Unfortunately, I don’t always get him two walks a day. I wake up at quarter after five to get ready for work. I know that I could walk him before work. I’ve done it, in fact. But it’s so damn early. So early that he’s not even ready to go outside. If I do walk him in the morning, it leaves me pressed for time, which means I’m stressed the closer I get to my leave time.
And when I’m stressed during my egress, shit gets prolonged.
This is due in my part to my OCD (this is a self-diagnosis…I’m sure that I don’t have clinical Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). Whenever I’m under the gun, I seem to go into self-sabotaging mode, and feel compelled to check and recheck any number of things: supplies and such, coffee pot unplugged, stove off. Needless to say, I’d prefer not to start my mornings this way. It’s best not to rattle my own cage before I have to go and teach kids all day.
Perhaps I can start waking up earlier. I could do that, but then I run the risk of being wrecked over lack of sleep. I’m a night-owl by nature, staying up until 11:00 on weeknights and even later on weekends. I tell myself to get to sleep earlier, but it’s hard to fight against the desire to read or watch shows.
To try to meet somewhere in the middle on this situation, I rerouted our evening walk to incorporate a longer loop and I think it’s working.
Sometimes, like tonight, dinner and bedtime take a little bit longer than usual so the evening walk becomes shorter (it’s still a good-sized walk, just not as long as our mega walk). This shorter route takes Grizz and me past a house where a husky resides, and every time we pass by, this dog loses it, barking up and down the length of the property line. We usually just cross to the other side of the street to try and avoid this barking frenzy. This house also features a statue in the front yard of what appears to be a wolf or husky. This throws me off every time. From a distance, it’s hard to tell if the real dog is lying in the yard, or if it’s just the statue. I suffered this experience tonight. I thought the real dog was lying in wait, ready to bark and bark and bark. Nope. Just the statue.
This reminds me of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. When Edmund betrays his family and head to the White Witch’s house he passes through a courtyard full of animal statues. He’s frightened at first, then grows bold and arrogant upon discovering their lifelessness. When he approaches and attempts to step over a wolf, it growls and terrifies Edmund.
This is how I feel about the dog statue house in my neighborhood.
Maybe I should just make time for the longer walk, while I can. After all, “Winter is coming.”
Huzzah.
Ryan L. Purdy 