Adventures in Walking

Ask most dogs if they want to go for a walk and their reaction rates up there with winning a trip to Disney World. With Gilly however the word "walk" translates to some sort of corporal punishment. Ask him if he wants to go for a walk and immediately the ears go back and he pretends he can no longer hear you. If you actually break out the harness and leash it is like you no longer own a dog because he will be nowhere in sight.

Once you manage to get his harness on, which is like trying to dress a limp child, he will grudgingly follow you to the front door. Once outside he will make a beeline for the closest parked car in hopes that maybe you didn't mean walk, but instead meant let's take a car ride to go visit Lucy (my parent's dog and Gilly's buddy). No such luck. From this point the worst part of the walk ensues.

When Gilly sees he is not getting in the car but he is indeed going for the dreaded walk he goes into panic mode. The brakes are applied, the ears go back once again, and his tail is permanently tucked. You may get a few steps down the driveway before this happens and if you are lucky you will actually make it to the street in front of our house, but you can be sure it will happen. Now in order to get Gilly to move and not drag you back to the house you must at this point resort to making a fool of yourself which includes coaxing him in a high pitched singsong voice, telling him how much fun this will be while interspersing throughout coos, claps, and kissing noises. You can only hope that this isn't one of the days your neighbor is sitting out in his garage or the neighbor kids are outside playing as this spectacle is usually worthy of odd looks and laughter.

Now if you can make it out of our court and onto the sidewalk down the street you are usually good to go. Well good in the sense that he is walking, but he is a dog on a mission and that mission is to get home and get this walk over with as soon as possible. There is no stopping to smell things that most dogs would be curious about and no other dogs exist..even when they are within two feet and stretching on their leashes to say hello. No sir... that only slows the task at hand which is to be done with this walking stuff.

This week we have set a record with two walks in one week, and both times we made it around the entire neighborhood. I think if I can just get him to realize there is nothing to be scared of he may eventually like walking or at least tolerate it. At this point “walk' is still a dirty word in our house. So our adventures in walking shall continue much to the amusement of my neighbors and passersby.