See Bodie in the Cone of Shame here
Now that Mom and I are alone again, our runs aren’t as adventurous. It’s still raining, too, so there aren’t many Friends to shout at on My Trail in the morning. I wish that Mom would do something to spice things up, but Mom said that sometimes success means not stopping what you’re doing even though it’s not interesting or hard enough. That doesn’t sound like much of an adventure to me, but Mom’s the one who knows how to cook my food and open doorknobs, so I guess I’ll stick with her.
We’ve both lost a lot this year. I used to have this friend whose house we would visit every weekend and they would love me and give me attention. But one day they got in a car and drove away, and now I don’t see them. If you knew me last year, you also know that I used to have another person named NotMom and an older sister that I lived with. Late last year, we started losing things out of the house, and then one day we lost NotMom, and my sister too. They got in a car and drove away. Another one of my friends used to run with us, and I would see her at the office when I was a business dog. She got on a plane and went away. Now, my last office friend is leaving Mom, so Mom is all alone to do a job that used to take 3 or 4 people. Maybe she’ll let me come to the office and help more.
Lastly, Bodie got in a car and went away. Mom promised we would have more sleepovers soon, but Bodie’s mom let us know yesterday that she had lost a fight with a lab and wouldn’t be ready for wrestling camp in a couple of weeks. Bodie is okay, but she had a couple of stitches and Mom was afraid I wouldn’t be gentle enough and would rip her stitches out.
Sometimes I want to get in a car and drive away too, just like everyone else. I want to go somewhere where it doesn’t rain all the time, and we don’t have to get up at 4 to run in the dark every day, and I don’t have to send Mom off to work all day and we can use that time to explore new places instead.
But then Mom and I will share a quiet run on My Trail where it’s just me and her and we’re perfectly in sync, and then I’ll spend a minute licking the sweat off her legs when we get home. Or we’ll share dinner just the two of us: 1/2 a carrot for her, 1/2 a carrot for me, 1/2 a carrot for her, 1/2 a carrot for me… Or I’ll be lying on my bed and she’ll come over and scratch my belly in just the right place, and she’ll kiss my cheek and I’ll kiss her eyeball. And in those moments I realize that when I dream about running away, all I dream about is going on adventures with Mom and giving her lots of snuggles. But I have all that right here already. So maybe Mom’s right. Maybe we need to keep going with the boring stuff, and someday the rain will stop, new Friends will come, and we’ll find more adventures.
–Oscar the Circumspect Pooch
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