The Zen in Dog Walking 

Late last week I decided on incorporating a new service, dog walking! I’ve been walking my neighbor’s dogs (Tramp, Boo and Dingo) since October. It’s been a great experience for me, but seeing how excited the three amigos get when I come to the door, as I like to call them, that is the butter to my bread. My neighbor, I’ll call him Fred is a disabled veteran and he has a challenging time since his pups are gang busters at the first step on their walk. Tramp and Dingo are large Labrador mixes and Boo is a Shepherd. They are just beyond excited for their time out in the neighborhood and would pull Fred and potentially injure him. Fred asked me to help him out and I obliged. 

The three amigos have so much energy and show so much excitement for their 30 minute walk. Even Fred sees and understands the enthusiasm they have for it. Fred even shared with me “this is their favorite time of day”. That particular statement is what made me open my eyes and consider there are probably other families who want the same for their dogs, but maybe don’t have the time for it or like Fred’s situation, they are physically unable to do that for them. Maybe you’re one of them! 

The internal motivator for me is the sense of peace I feel when walking dogs. I don’t know where I read this before, “the zen of dog walking”. Yes, dog walking is truly a meditative activity for me. I find the connection in building the relationship with each dog I walk from just putting one front of the other with my four legged companion both rejuvenating and relaxing. I’m grateful for this opportunity. I get as much out of dog walking as my clients’ dogs do 😉

So, if you’re reading this and you find yourself in Southwest Oklahoma, Four Paws & You is ready to leash up and step out!

I’m about to head out and meet up with the three amigos shortly… 

  

We’re Done!

 

Marathon or Bust

Eddie and I ran the El Paso Marathon on Sunday. Our ‘training’ plan was haphazard at best. Eddie’s current job doesn’t lend itself for personal time and I took a rather nonchalant attitude towards the whole thing. We squeezed in long training runs with a few of them with Jack and Bernie. They are both my regular running partners. Jack is the go-getter. He shoots out of bed when I get up, sneezing away showing me is beyond thrilled the day is starting. Bernie, on the other hand, is slow to roll out of bed and he will refuse it if it’s before 5:30am. I can’t blame him for that, especially on the weekend, but when my schedule dictates my early rise, I pull out all the stops for him as a way to encourage his participation.

Jack, Bernie and myself run our regular 4-5 miles a 5 days out of the week and one long run on the weekend of 10 or more miles. This time around, my lack of enthusiasm kept my long runs rather short. I know the only way I got out the door was because of the Bears and Eddie’s few weekends of free time. 

The four of us made it up to about 15 miles together. Jack and Bernie enjoyed themselves as we meandered our way through some backroads, saw some wildlife which had Bernie over the moon seeing deer prancing around in the woods. I know I appreciated the companionship as a long run can feel lonely at times. I love my running partners, there is no judgement of how well the run is going, there is excitement for the route (what are we going to see, smell and hear), there is also the bonding time with Jack and Bernie. I’m not sure what they see as the point of running, but I do know they enjoy spending that time with both me and Eddie. We all run in sync. There is no pulling or lagging behind, we make sure they get water and potty breaks and maybe even a little ‘smell the roses’ time, but for the majority of our 15 milers, we’re running together as a team. I call them my little gang 🙂

After our last long run, I spent some time before the race not running. I took Jack and Bernie out on walks and it didn’t feel the same. Maybe it’s because of walking is a  lower intensity activity or the marathon looming in front of me which I felt ill equipped for was just around the corner. Even though I seemingly dragged my feet the last couple of weeks, time still moves along regardless how I feel about it and marathon weekend was here.

Eddie, Jack, Bernie and myself traveled down to El Paso. I know they love their hotspot there.  Howl A Day Inn is where it’s at for them. HADI has play yards and the dogs who board there spend most of their day out in one of those yards. They are only in their kennel because of bad weather (rare for El Paso) or to sleep. Melina is a dog trainer and she is astute in reading body language. HADI is a model for structuring doggie day cares and boarding facilities. Jack and Bernie also deserve a vacation and HADI is the resort destination of their desire. 

The pictures are courtesy of Howl A Day Inn! 

   
    
 My mind was rest assured while Jack and Bernie hung out at HADI. No distractions left for me, only the focus being on finishing the marathon. I needed some mental stimulation to help with slogging through 26.2 miles, so I decided on counting how many dogs I would see along the route. Eddie laughed, but he was way more focused on running than I was at that point. I saw almost as many dogs as miles in the race, 18 in total. Let me try and breakdown some notable ones:

  • 2 Yorkies who were supposed to be potting in the front yard, one of them decided to join the runners which I helped return to her person. Her name is Nahla
  • 1 Labrador with a pinch collar 😦
  • 1 Pit Bull running without a leash alongside his human who was riding a bike. I wish I took a picture, the dog seemed to be in heaven with his tongue out, bobbing up and down with his stride
  • 1 Chiuahua mix bundled up in a blanket and was held in the arms of his person

And

  • 1 Belgian Malinois sitting in the bed of a truck eagerly watching the runners as they drove by

The marathon weekend was a success, Eddie and I both finished and Jack and Bernie are completely relaxed. I think next time, I’ll have to make it a point of taking pictures of the dogs I see along the next route, oh and take marathon training a bit more seriously. Who am I kidding, the latter probably won’t happen!

The Humanity in Animal Rescue

I volunteer for an animal rescue in Oklahoma. Rainbow Bridge Can Wait is a tremendous organization staffed by dedicated and generous people, particularly women and families. These women devote much of their time coordinating transportation of surrendered, abused, neglected and abandoned dogs and moving them from deplorable conditions into loving and nurturing homes. The team of women also coordinate adoption events, several times a month in fact, bring more foster families on the team, and go out and perform the rescues. The stories I hear about the conditions which many dogs find themselves is heartbreaking to say the least, but Rainbow Bridge Can Wait truly, humanely and compassionately offers new hope into the lives of their companion animals.

This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of helping out Rainbow Bridge in their rescue efforts by meeting a dog owner who was looking to surrender his companion animal. After reading the last sentence, judgement or ridicule often come to mind to try to understand what would make someone surrender their pet. Questions like “How can anyone do that?” “How come they couldn’t make it work?” often come up for people who are looking from the outside. We are left creating a story about these people we know nothing about in order to understand a chain of events and many times we get it wrong. We come up with declarative statements saying things like “I’ll never make that kind of decision”, “I’m glad that’s not us”. We, like the owner who surrendered his dog, created bonds with their companions and for years foraged an everlasting relationships with them. In some instances, life takes a detour and we are left making a decision on something we never imagined having to do so in the first place. In my limited scope of helping with an animal rescu’s work, I saw the pain and heart wrenching sadness in the dog owner’s eye while he was saying goodbye to his “Buddy”. I couldn’t help, but have tears fall for this family. The loss of a loved one is so great and witnessing someone say goodbye to someone or some pet they love is a precious moment and one where an outsider like me can develop a deeper understanding of the complicated situations people find themselves. 

Even with profound sadness and despair found in loss, there is also the glimmer of light in the next moment for the continued journey and the new opportunities which present themselves when we least expect them. I have the utmost gratitude for the animal rescues. They present a different alternative than an animal shelter. “In 2008, roughly 3.7 million pets were euthanized according to American Humane Association. Animals, like senior dogs, pit bulls and fearful dogs to name a few often get overlooked if animal shelters do adoption events and are most often euthanized. Animal rescues, like Rainbow Bridge Can Wait offer a different solution. They offer a new opportunity for many companion animals. They ensure dogs receive vaccinations before they are adopted out, rehabilitation of behavior issues and placed in loving foster homes before adoptions. All of this work requires support from the community. Many, if not all local rescues are non profits and they struggle day to day in finding monetary donations, food donations, people donating their time in walking companion animals during adoption events, becoming a foster family or even helping out at the rescue for those animals who are not able to be placed yet in a home. I believe we all have responsibility in caring for abandoned, neglected and abused animals. We all need to speak up for them and be the voice of the voiceless.

I urge all readers in taking some sort of action either find out about your local animal rescues, donate time, money or other resources to them, volunteer in walking the dogs in the shelters or help out a loose pet find their owners. Be the difference 🙂