I took Betty on a little walk hoping that we would travel maybe 100 yards at most and that she would sniff stuff for 30 minutes or so while I stood around and did nothing, but Betty wasn’t about to let me get away with slouching off during a walk. Betty wandered ahead slowly at first, but I took too long to catch up. She looked back at me with annoyance and decided that it was time for role reversal. She zoomed forward to the limit of the leash intent on dragging me out of complacency. I pleaded my case saying, “C’mon Betty, can’t I just take it easy and look around at the sky and the trees and the leaves?” but my feeble plea was rejected. This walk was going to be a run.
Betty yanked me along the usual route spending only nanoseconds sniffing the familiar spots. Resting and lingering weren’t happening, and Betty wasn’t going to be fooled by my little trick of turning around and pretending that she was going the wrong way. The whole walk was done at the basset hound gallop pace. The lesson was clear, but I’m not sure if I learned it.
