I’ve got an interesting story for you. Wait, scratch that. Don’t you just hate it when someone says that then goes ahead to tell you a story that is exactly the opposite of interesting/funny? I don’t want to be that guy. Anyway, that’s not why I’m here. This will be a short post so I might as well get to the juicy bits.
Well, today I got home rather earlier than I normally do. I was tempted to head straight for my laptop as I do on almost a daily basis. Check my mail, my facebook and read a few of my bookmarked blogs. Like clockwork. But I didn’t; not today.
I own a dog. A young German shepherd. Not a 100% pure breed but I love her nevertheless. Only a trained eye can tell the difference. This is she.
Let me get back to the point.
As I had mentioned earlier, I did arrive home at around 5.30 pm so the sun was still out. I had been meaning to take her out for a walk but something always came up so I always promised her that I’d do it the next day. This was the perfect chance – I thought to myself. It had been a while since I did this so finding the leash took me a good ten minutes of walking around in circles trying to recall where I last put it. When I finally found it, I quickly I went and hooked it to the dog’s collar and we were off.
Now, those of you who are keen will notice that normally, anyone who owns a pet will in most circumstances refer to it by its name. You know, spike, butch, rex et cetera. I haven’t done this yet and you must be wondering why. No need to panic. You will soon find out the reason for this.
So we were finally on our way out. You could tell that she was excited by the way she jumped up and down. I could almost swear that she was smiling. Truth be told, I was also rather joyous. It was infectious this mood. She had been waiting for the longest time for this day. Okay, I know that this is going to sound pretty paradoxical but as soon as we stepped out of the gate, she looked a bit spooked. I wasn’t too surprised coz I know she doesn’t get to veer beyond the boundaries of the compound too often so she was slowly trying to take it all in. I didn’t rush her.
As she got acclimatized to her surroundings, I could see the smile slowly returning to her face. We were back in business. Her curiosity too was now full blown and this was pretty evident from the way she yanked me forward every time she saw something interesting. More so when this bunch of kids who were playing outside saw her. They immediately became animated; whistling, clapping and doing whatever they could to get her attention. The energy was way much more than I had anticipated and it is for this reason that I had to fasten the leash in my fist so she wouldn’t get me off guard. She was not moved by these shenanigans. I could almost see her shrug indifferently and raise her nose into the wind as we took a turn to avoid the little rascals.
This particular turn we took was not for the best. Approximately 40 meters ahead, I could see a man and a brown dog in tow. As we advanced, I soon found out that this man indeed owned the dog, but had no leash on it. And that the dog was male. I must admit I was pretty apprehensive of this situation. I approached cautiously to overtake the pair but it seemed as though brownie over here had other ideas bombarding his little brain. We made small talk, me and the guy. He mentioned how pretty my dog looked, and I did the best to return the favor. With significant difficulty though as his man’s dog was surely no Golden Retriever, Rottweiler or GSD so I had to work hard around this fact and come up with a compliment. I forget what I told him but we thereafter discussed if my dog was already ‘active’. All this time I was keen to make sure that his now overly excited dog kept its distance from my lil’ one. I told him no and promised him that when it did I might hook him up with a pup. Seeing as we would not be able to walk in the same direction as them without worrying about his dog getting ideas, I decided to change routes. We quickly trotted back in the direction we had come, briefly encountering the pesky kids from before and heading past them.
After doing a couple hundred meters, all hell broke loose. We met a couple of construction workers heading in our direction and this suddenly made her moody. She became jumpy. I think I should mention now that I had given her a wash a couple of days ago and being the genius that I am, I didn’t fasten the collar well enough as I allowed her room to dry off. It doesn’t take a genius to guess what happened next.
All I can say is that within minutes, the position of authority had swiftly changed hands/paws and it was I who was now chasing the bitch around with a chain attached only to a collar and nothing else.(please note the context in which I have used the word bitch.)
She had no care in the world. Every time I edged closer to her, she would run for a bit, turn around and glance at me with her tongue out, dramatically look away then speed off! As in? She was killing me. To be honest, I think she knew her way around, coz otherwise she would have ventured too far away and lost her bearing completely. And now this was me; chasing after her, whistling, clicking, snapping my fingers, doing whatever I could to get her attention. Sense of déjà vu? No? Okay.
Eventually, we came back to the place where the annoying kids were playing. Yes, I know; kids, an unbound dog, not the best of scenarios. I wasn’t too worried though coz she naturally isn’t aggressive.
Hoping that the kids wouldn’t laugh at me, I put the chain and collar in my pocket and started pretending that I was in fact playing a game with the dog. They bought it. I think. And kids being kids, they were excited about our ‘game’ and so they approached to join. Simpler times.
I know I promised that this would be a short post. Please bear with me, I’m almost done.
Almost giving up, I assumed a squat position as I knew this usually attracts the dog’s attention. She duly did the tongue thing again and ignored me completely! WTF was I doing? I felt like I was making a complete fool of myself. A guy who can’t keep a simple leash on his dog. He must be retarded! (Ignore the pun if you noticed it). I felt like a real idiot as I squatted there whistling nervously, to an unconcerned mutt.
This one boy came close to me and immediately struck conversation, in that simple way that kids do. He also began to whistle and I naturally assumed that he was trying to help me out. “So what’s her name?” Remember when I pointed out earlier that I wasn’t calling her by name? Well, clearly this is not a question I expected and needless to say I was ill prepared for it. “Ummmm, ehhh, Cess” I blurted. “What?”, he asked. Did this boy have a hearing problem. I thought I was audible enough. “Her name is Cess” I retorted. Cess? Why the hell did I choose the name Cess? I remember trying to find her a name that I didn’t sound silly saying and up until this point, I had failed. So she had remained nameless for over a year now. “What a cool name! Here Cess, here Cess”, the kid began calling as we chased the dog around. And Cess it would be from there on. I chuckled to myself.
After chasing her around for a good 15 minutes, she decided that I had had enough cardio. She came towards me looking rather remorseful for putting me through all that. I didn’t care. After putting her collar back on her neck, I affectionately rubbed the thick fur on her back and we headed back home; Cess and I.