Day 12—Two Women and Two Dogs

Today’s Surprise: I keep running into the same two women and their dogs. One has a Great Dane and the other a yellow Lab. They live in the next neighborhood over and we walk our dogs on the same park path. Of course, everytime I walk my little 14-week-old Golden Retriever (“Toast”) past them the dogs HAVE to stop and play. Toast shrieks with delight, jumps up on the big dogs, tries to grab hold of their neck (like she did with her brothers and sisters a few weeks ago), and runs around them in circles. The big dogs are amused, I think. Sometimes slightly bothered. But they seem to get that she’s a puppy. And puppies behave that way. Sometimes abnoxiously. But they tolerate it. Unless the puppy gets too obnoxious. And then they’ll give a little growl or grunt to ward off Toast. And fortunately for Toast, she gets that.

The only thing for the humans to do is … to interact. We really want this anyway. But how do you just go out walking and stop people on the street to have a conversation? You don’t. You can’t. People might be polite the first time, but after that they would see you coming down the street and suddenly decide to take a left at the next corner before they get to you. So we get dogs. Dogs become our excuse to HAVE TO stop and talk with people.

We’re slowly getting to know each other, our names, our dog’s names, where we live, etc. It’s a little thing… but I’m eager to see what happens the more we keep running into each other.