A walk in the woods with your dog

There is nothing quite like taking a walk in the woods with a dog. Because we have been blessed with 38 acres of land, our English Shepherd, Brighid, spends almost all of her time off leash. So she usually is free to run and explore, but take her into the woods with no agenda, no work to do, and you can watch sheer joy displayed. She runs helter-skelter, at a dead run through the trees, only stopping to sniff whatever strange smell catches her attention. She leaps over fallen logs, weaves around tree trunks, and rolls in the leaves. We have what we call the “small creek” that runs through our woods and Brighid loves to run splashing through it, water spraying every which way as she bounds from one side of the creek to the other. In the small creek there is a deep and wide spot that we call “the swimming hole” (although none of us has ever swam in it). On this particular walk Brighid stopped at the swimming hole and stood there staring at me with that particular grin that dogs give us when they want something. In this case she wanted me to toss sticks into the wide pool so that she could go swimming in after them. Even though the temperature was in the 40’sF she dove right in with out a moment of hesitation, just joy at the thought of getting that stick, bringing it back to shore, and chewing it to pieces.

Taking a walk in the woods with a dog, with no agenda, no plan on where to go or what must be accomplished, gives you the chance to enter into, if even just a little bit, the sheer joy that the dog feels as she is free to run and sniff, leap and bound, her way through the woods.