Re-Springing Six Steps

Mission: Make a Daily Prompt personal. The details: Re-Springing Your Step. I don’t know if this is the last time I felt rejuvenated, but I’m going to share with you a walk I took with my dog, R.H., last spring. I like walks, almost as much as she does, and I believe this particular one refreshed us both.

I try to walk her often, but our treks usually take us around the same neighborhoods and parks close to our home. Last spring I decided to take her into the city, for a stroll around downtown, for her to smell new scents and me to see different sights. This was our first long walk of the year, after being cooped up in the house for much of the winter. I parked near Main Street and we headed first for a small park within the downtown district.

She of course stopped first to smell the base of a trash can, which could only mean that some other dog recently mistook it for a fire hydrant. But I let her see if it was anyone she recognized, and then we headed for the creek that runs through the park and beyond.

She loves water, and will get in the lake often when we are at the dog park close to our house. So she quickly spotted the creek and pulled me in that direction. The sun glistened off the surface, and I was grateful to see no trash floating by this time around. I had to let her dip her paws at least once.

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R.H. is a mutt, something plus laborador, so I’m told she should love water. But she won’t swim at the dog park, only walk in the water, drink it, sink her tennis ball in it, and occasionally relieve herself in it. But she must love the feel of the water on her feet, as she loves to traipse through the larger creek just a block away from home, as well. I can’t blame her at all.

From there we headed toward the college campus, and across the street from it past a favorite local lunch and dinner spot for my wife and I. I hadn’t planned on stopping for any reason (they don’t serve canines!), but R.H. stopped, right at the gate, and stared at the door. Of all the places to stop and gawk, why this one? It must have smelled as good to her as it does to us.

By this time we were headed back toward the car, but still had a long way to go to get there, so I guess she was getting hungry. Since I didn’t take her into the last place, she stopped and stared in the window of another a little bit later. Undeterred by her apparent desire to stop for a sandwich, I took us across Main Street again for a little longer journey, still.

While this shot isn’t framed very well, it does show a pretty happy dog!

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As the sun began to dip behind our small city’s tallest buildings, it began to be clear that we were both wearing out, and the walk back to the car was the new agenda.

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I cannot speak for her, but our first long walk on a beautiful spring day made me feel fantastic. The holiday season at work drains me of nearly every ounce of energy I have, and it is followed by the bitter and nasty Midwest winter that leaves little inspiration to go outside at all. This was a walk we had never before taken together, and the new adventure paired with the familiar exercise make me feel like the year had just begun anew. In total, six steps were re-sprung–her feet as well as mine.