Parenthood: Week 432 – Buffy Teaching Me How To Walk

Walking slowly along with Buffy in the gentle summer afternoon wind, I thought for a moment to pull her along, and then I paused and decided to go at her pace. As we made it around my neighborhood, stopping whenever she wanted to, I watched her carefully. There was something meaningful about slow steps, the way she tugged at me towards a tree and turned around to look at me to make sure I was with her.

I was surprised to learn when we got Buffy that puppies don’t know how to walk on a leash.  Diana and I would take her down on the sidewalk or in the park, with this baby-blue harness with a little flower on it, and work on her walking. Sometimes we would bring treats, dehydrated chicken liver, to coax her along, but we found that squeaky toys worked better. Her favorite was this little blue koala bear.

Buffy made progress but sometimes wouldn’t want to walk on a leash anymore or get tired. During those first couple of months, it wouldn’t be uncommon for one of us to carry her home. We lived in a condo near the Metra (elevated commuter train), so there were many city sounds Buffy had to learn. Over time, she learned to manage cars, buses, and trains, holding her head up high and strutting down the sidewalk.

As a teenage puppy, she was fearless. She pointed her nose straight into wind, snowstorms, and rain. Then, when I was ready to go inside and dry off, she was good to go for one more time around the block and one more romp through a snowbank.

Never one to wake us up in the morning, she would always be ready for me to walk her early in the morning before I went to work, sometimes as early as 5:30 am. Then, with energy and purpose, she would dart out in the darkness.

Now it’s different.

Buffy is slower and doesn’t keep pace as well as she used to. She often doesn’t want to go out on a midday walk. Sometimes during her morning walk, she wants to turn around only after a couple of houses. She turns her head at the birds when they sing and the squirrels when they run, but she no longer lunges at them, pulling the leash tight.

Buffy still likes us to stay together. She stops when one of us gets too far behind. When we go out the front door, Buffy often wants to come along, especially if she sees our children walk out the front door. In a novel setting, in a forest preserve, or a park, the spring comes back into her step, and with her face in the wind, she pulls and urges me along. There are still moments walking beside Diana when she trots along and looks up at Diana with a look of love that is nothing short of beautiful.

More than a decade ago, we taught Buffy how to go on a walk, and now she’s teaching me how to walk. In her quiet way, she shows me how to slow down, experience the world with all of my senses, and share in the simple, the common, and the ordinary with gratitude and wonder.