The Walk

The dog loved walks with her mistress, but she hated the rain. However, she loved her mistress even more than she hated the rain, so here she was padding through the puddles. The rain drowned most of the scents and sounds, leaving her bored with the excursion and a bit off-guard. But wait … there was a hint of something … a fragment of a scent. She began her visual scan, the landscape divided into segments, gradually honing in on the tiny flicker of motion deep in the bushes straight ahead. Now she could smell, hear and see it and her adolescent excitement shoved all thought of stealth and craft from her mind. She tried to be sneaky, really she did, but the barking just seemed to happen all by itself. She knew it made her mistress unhappy, but it seemed that even her best efforts merely calmed the barks to still-frantic yelps.

She strained against her purple collar, pulling the leash taut and then, without warning, it was gone and she was bounding toward her goal unfettered. She caught the edge of the shadow as she raced across the wet pavement, but no consideration was given to slowing. The impact knocked the air from her lungs and replaced her forward motion with a head over heels descent into a stream of icy water. It hurt so much … and she was so very cold. And then her mistress was there, lifting her from the water, murmuring soft sounds and holding her close. Everything would be okay.