Hocus Pocus
Walking through City Park with Heidi straining on the leash, I marveled how this once shy dog is now a bulldozer going after squirrels, and sometimes trying to take flight and chase pelicans. Now it is two dogs who strain on the leash looking for mischief.
But not me. I’ve worn too many leashes out and have now found that my leash is slack on the ground. Which I don’t mind, it comes with the territory.
As I was walking around the lagoon my eyes keen on a cormorant drying its outstretched wings on a low dead branch, a fellow walker who likes to call me Red but now catches himself each time as my hair is blonde said, “I noticed how good the Shepherd has gotten.” I smiled not wanting to reveal I was having opposite thoughts. I said, ” She tries but you can’t teach a dog new tricks.”
And he said, “Well it’s that you can’t learn them anything without unlearning them. That’s the hocus pocus them and humans have to deal with.”
Hmm, I thought, you can unlearn a lot of things – you can unlearn straining on a leash because I have seen many of my dogs age and slow down, just like I’m seeing it in myself. I told him, “That may be so, but the best is yet to come.”
He said, “I’m going to keep that thought today. That’s a good one, Red.”