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Pleasurable time with the morning dogs
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Published: February 7, 2008
If you're out in your car early some morning, and a figure suddenly looms out of the half-darkness wrestling two leashes attached to two frisky dogs, that's probably me.
I am one of those benighted souls who is up at the pre-crack of dawn every morning walking his canines. According to the Dog Whisperer, who has the status of a deity in my household, dogs should be given at least an hour (preferably 90 minutes) walk each morning to give them adequate exercise and the opportunity to explore an environment bigger than the backyard.
When I figured out that the Dog Whisperer was using his dogs to keep his own weight down as well as theirs, the idea began to appeal to me. If I could walk an hour a day, and get it out of the way before 8 a.m., those ice-cream sandwiches I crave at about 9 p.m. each night might not be quite so visible on me. Unlike my dogs, I don't possess a nice coat of fur to hide my flab.
So I usually hoist myself out of bed in the pre-dawn grayness, put on a thermal BVD and sweat pants, jam on my baseball cap and the heaviest coat I own, and head out into the freezing morning for our daily 60 minute constitutional, eight eager little feet leading my two shuffling ones forward.
But please, don't bestow on me the looks of pity I often receive from those in their warm, comfy cars, peering at me through a still-defrosting windshield. My early morning winter walks in Winston-Salem are one of the great pleasures of my life, and I get to repeat the experience six times a week.
I am fortunate to live in Buena Vista, where there are many sidewalks, a variety of trees and beautiful landscaping, and enough quiet side streets to allow me to forget that I have the luxury of walking while many are rushing off to work.
There are few sights as inspiring as the sun rising against a gently bluing sky, framed between the Wachovia tower and the rest of the downtown skyline. Or the light glinting off the frozen moisture hanging from a mottled tree limb. Or the hard-packed frost that whitens the ground just as it did in the frozen landscapes of Pieter Breughel, who probably painted them after he finished walking his dogs in 16th century Belgium.
I find this is the best time of the day for me to think, meditate and imagine, while all around day bursts into life. My dogs, one big and one little, have plenty to keep themselves busy as we follow our carefully planned route of minimal traffic and maximum foliage. (And yes, I carry plastic bags to pick up the reminders they leave of their presence.)
I remain amazed by the burgeoning squirrel population in our area, which is not a surprise, given that their natural predators are restrained by their owners. I think a secret manual circulates among squirrels explaining how leashes work, since they stroll by my dogs with such impunity, confident they can make it up a tree before a retractable leash reaches its limit.
I've waded through leaves up to my knees, experienced the joy of making the first footprints in a newly fallen snow, and been soaked to the skin by an unexpected early morning deluge of rain or sleet. I can see who are the heavy drinkers in my neighborhood on recycling day, and the biggest consumers of stuff on garbage day.
But mostly it's about me and my dogs, and the silent communion that takes place between animals and their human guardians. We've found a nice, comfortable pace that works for man and beast. Only on occasion does one dog go one way and the other in the opposite direction, leaving me jerking about like a scarecrow undergoing electro-shock therapy.
And then there is the one morning, usually Thursdays, when I get to luxuriate in bed while my wife walks the dogs. On those days, I take her late afternoon shift, a shorter stroll that is warmer, noisier and not nearly as mysterious as my early morning sojourns. To be sure, I enjoy my occasional day off, but the dogs always give me a slightly suspicious look. Where have I been? What have I been up to?
Humans, they seem to say, need so much monitoring. It's much easier for them to keep an eye on me when they're walking me each morning. At least they don't have to pick up after me.
■ Dale Pollock, a former dean of the School of Filmmaking at the N.C. School of the Arts, teaches film there now.
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