The Puppy Walk

From my front stoop, I can see the big dipper pointing to a clearly defined half-moon. It’s also pitch-black outside because it’s four o’clock in the morning. Thanks to the Corona virus, our gym is closed. So, I walk out into the cold with my six-foot two, former SWAT officer husband, who has nearly a foot in height and the better part of a hundred pounds on me (thank God!). I’m not exactly a glutton for punishment, but I’m fighting (albeit feebly) the uphill battle of oncoming middle age. And so, we begin our newest morning ritual around our block.

I’m more of a “wog-ger”… I mostly walk with short bursts of jogging because – well, let’s face it – I hate running and my stamina sucks. My husband walks with me on the long sides of our rectangular path and jogs on the shorter sides. Until two weeks ago, I jogged the short sides as well. However, after a poorly thought-out plan of taking our three rottweilers with us for our morning exercise, I made the ill-advisable decision to jog with the two younger canines who are fifteen months old; since my husband is recovering from shoulder surgery, I thought it would be better to let him have the more-behaved, older dog.

We were almost at the end of our jogging burst when the puppies decided it would be fun to cross in front of me and slow down, resulting in me landing face down on the pavement before rolling into the fetal position having no clue what had happened, only knowing that my right leg from my knee to my hip felt like it had been hit with a sledge hammer. Had I witnessed the same incident occur to someone else, I would have been in shameless hysterics before catching my break to ask the victim if she was okay. As it was, I was hugging the cement around the corner from my neighbor’s house…not where I would have preferred to be resting at four o’clock in the morning.

I was unable to speak for what felt like several minutes and when my husband asked where it hurt, I tried to point to the entire area from my hip to my knee. However, what I actually did was gesture to my leg in a circular motion, which only made me resemble a frantic little engine that couldn’t because it was tipped over on its side.

I am proud to say that I did have the presence of mind (with a substantial portion of luck) not to let go o f the dog leashes. Once I could breathe again, I realized I was quite pissed and offended that the little urchins had no idea they were the cause of my fall, nor did they even care. I was able to utter a pitiful “I’m fine” to my husband while he helped me to my feet, to which he said “you’re done.” My response was “but I don’t want to be done” and he said, quite matter-of-factly, “but you’re done. Then the tears spouted freely as the realization hit me that I was probably quite injured. We traded leashes so he had the culprits and I took the eldest dog, which had just become the morning’s favorite. My husband walked at quarter speed while I limped along with a very unattractive gait, much like that of Quasimodo.

Alas, two weeks later I am still popping ibuprofen like candy and toting a heating pad like Linus from the Peanuts gang with his security blanket. Thank you, stupid puppies, you hurt your mother. This is why you are no longer invited to come for walks at the butt-crack of dawn. No, I’m not still angry with you, I just can’t ignore the pain when you pull on the leash. I’m also not anxious to revisit the concrete quite so intimately…and I prefer to look up at the moon from my feet.

Original Post 04/2020