Tails From Rainbow Bridge: My First Walk

A few weeks ago I wrote about my Gotcha Day.  Now I want to tell you about my first walk.

I was two pounds and my neck was less than three inches round.  Mommy had this tiny little harness for me, I think she stole it off a ferret.

We lived across the street from the State Mental Hospital which was a beautiful place to walk with both paved and mulched walkways, many beautiful tall trees, several benches and the occasional homicidal maniac mistakenly given a day pass due to bureaucratic overload.

My sister Blake loved walking there.  She chased squirrels, she got her head scratched by incarcerated patients, she ate geese poop.  I learned to do two of those things.  The geese poop wasn’t for me.

When Blake went for her first walk with my parents she wasn’t much bigger than I was on my first day.  Mommy put her collar on and they walked outside together.  Blake walked to the end of the driveway, her tail held high, nose in the air, as proud as anything you have ever seen  When she got to the end of the driveway she collapsed from exhaustion and had to be carried.  Over time she built up her stamina.

Given her experience with Blake she didn’t expect me to walk very far either.  We drove over to the institue, me in Mommy’s hands.  When we arrived she put me down and I began to walk, with my head up and my tail up, very proud.  And I kept walking, and walking, and walking.  I never tired for a second.  

Mommy was amazed.  I was such a good walker.  I didn’t need to be picked up for the whole walk.  Soon after Blake taught me how to meet the patients, how to tree a squirrel (she would sneak up behind them but me, being a puppy, could not control my excitement and barked, and she would turn and nip at me in frustration) and how not to eat geese poop because she ate it all.

That day was the first many walks with Mom.  I am patiently waiting for my next one.