From w to W

When I met Oz—right up until the last weeks, actually—she had great energy. She was an exceedingly playful dog. She loved to chase, to hide, to play tug of war, etc. In fact, those she was unfailingly loving about it, at times she'd get kind of tiring. It was almost a cliché: it's the end of the day, and I just want to sit down, but there's this jazzy dog running here and there and…yeah.

Well, Kathy took to watching The Dog Whisperer. Some of the shows were impressive, some were kind of crazy (you have how many dogs?), etc. Along the way, Cesar mentioned more than once that an unruly dog was usually acting up because he just didn't get enough exercise, and prescribed at least 45 minutes of walking a day.

Slowly the light dawned. I took Oz out morning, noon, afternoon, and night to pee, but we just did a few minutes walk. Maybe, I reasoned with ponderous stupidity, if she got longer walks she'd be more well-behaved in the evening.

Well, duh.

I can still remember the first W. We went up hill, like we usually did. We got to the flats, and to Sudden Valley Drive, where we usually turned around. That was five minutes there, five minutes back. Tonight, though, we crossed the street. We went up mysterious road beyond, and down the hill we hadn't ever crossed before. There were great houses, and odd side streets, and a park!

We didn't go more than 30 minutes total that night—probably 25-27, actually—but Oz was panting. That night she slept.

We'd won, but at what price? You see, Oz was a "We always…" dog, as in, when you do something once with her, she changed that to "We always do x" (play chase, sit here, share the hamburger, etc.). We got a happy, sleepy evening dog, but we also created a monster of W.

Greg