Ogle (Still) Lives Here

In case you’ve been wondering, Ogle does still live here. One of my (too many) new year’s resolutions is to get back to writing more often. We’ll see.

It’s a clear, cold, sparkly winter day. The Sunday before Christmas. Calm before the chaos. We got out for a walk early-ish this morning and I decided to head for the park on the river – sunny, bright, and wide open, with a little bonus beach. Kind of a perfect dog walking spot. Except…

There they were. My husband and I call them The Snobby Off-Leash Dog Club. Which isn’t very nice, I mean, I’m sure they are all perfectly lovely people. And they have spent time and energy and money to properly train their good-natured dogs so they can be trusted off leash. They have a right to be sort of proud of that, right? To let their dogs play and run in the park? And if they give off a bit of a stink eye vibe if you happen to walk past with your leashed and slip-collared edgy and often unruly dog, well, I mean, can you blame them? (Yes. Yes I do. A little empathy, people!)

Anyway, so there they were, like they are almost every morning. Clustered in a circle, chitting and chatting, while their presumably good-natured and better-trained-than-ours dogs romp around the lawn.

Many years ago, with a different dog, we probably would have been all in for The Snobby Off-Leash Dog Club. Made friends, showed up with coffee and donuts, arranged doggie play dates. But, well, Ogs is not that dog. And usually when the Club is in the park, we steer clear. It just feels too risky. Ogle can and does sometimes play with other dogs, and she doesn’t react to every dog she sees anymore, but because of her bite history she cannot be off leash and she is not always a fan of strangers, canine or human. And the one-dog-on-leash and the other-dog-off-leash is never a great dynamic, even with the calmest of pups.

But it was such a perfect park by the river day today, and I was feeling a bit, I don’t know, attitude-y. It’s a public park, after all. My dog and I are following the rules. If we want to walk down and around and enjoy the view, why shouldn’t we?

And so we did. We stuck to the edges of the park, making our way to the water. Ogle was doing great, she just sort of looked up at the other dogs and got back to doing her thing. I thought we were all clear and was feeling pretty good. But, as we got closer to the pack, I noticed one of the dogs had stopped playing and was staring at us. And she started to approach. So I called out to the owner. Being super nice. Even apologetic. “Oh, hey, so sorry, please recall your dog. Mine isn’t always friendly! (A little laugh show how nice we are and how we feel bad and isn’t this all just so silly)” But the dog is pretty interested in us, and starts following us, and I’m getting a bit nervy. Ogie looks back and gives a low growl. And I’m working on staying calm and cool while waiting for the explosion. But it never comes. She totally keeps it together! She looks up at me, looks back once or twice, sniffs the ground. And we keep walking away. The dog follows us for bit, and either decides to obey her owner or picks up on Ogle’s “fuck off” vibe, and lets us be.

I exhale. “Good girl!!” I take a bunch of deep breaths and we head down to the beach to dig in the sand and chew a stick or two.