...in which he finds out his puppy dog is a scaredy-cat.

Any time that I spend with Bagels now, my goal is to wear her out. I feel guilty later if she is gunned up and I’m trying to work or relax. If I don’t respond to her nudging and pleading she’ll stalk about listlessly. After a bit, she’ll flop down and give me these bored looks just like I get from the older students. From my students or from my dog, it’s depressing. To fight back against that on the canine front I’ve started taking Bagels on longer walks whenever I can. Tonight I finished classes early and it was especially nice out so I figured we could walk someplace new.

There are a few limiting factors for where we can walk. To the north, we are immediately cut off by highway 3 and an elevated freeway. Then I try to stick to less busy streets. I avoid Main Street and Market Street. Also, I can’t risk walking past my old school. There’s still some bad blood…spattered in the halls. Ok, honestly, it looks like the social version of a ritualized killing gone horribly wrong. So I avoid my old school. Also, if I go too far in any one direction I get out of town and the traffic gets too fast and too dangerous. All those constraints combined I still have some options, but I generally head in a southeasterly direction.

And so we headed out that way tonight. It really was a lovely night. The sun was low and the air was cool. There was a slight breeze and things smelled a bit crisper than they have. I found those hints of autumn comforting. My route took me near my current school and then we turned down a new road. It was small but not cramped. We walked past a parked car and found a street dog crouched there, jet black. I generally let Bagels approach them is she wants, she is a social dog; I always watch close. I heard the street dog start to growl low and let Bagels know that they weren’t going to be friends. I gave Bagels a short tug and we headed off. It was getting on to dusk at this point.

We headed up past the top of Market Street towards a residential area next to the floodway. This was all new territory for both of us. As we passed the parking garage I noticed a bulky female dog following behind us. Bagels would turn around and look at her and she would stop. Bagels would sniff something and we would move on and thirty feet behind, she would sniff it too. She gave me the feeling we were on her turf. I think Bagels still just wanted to be her friend. We kept walking up the road the hugged the floodway.

We passed a Daoist temple and we entered a residential section with brick wall on our left and pipe railing on our right. The bulky dog was still following us, but she never barked or made any sound at all. We got up to a drive with a beautiful car and paused for a moment before continuing. We weren’t ten feet off when the following dog came up and made it clear that we had just trespassed at her home. She came back with two spry young pups. They never seemed angry or aggressive, just apprehensive. I thought the puppies might like to play with Bagels, but one ran back with the mother and the other wouldn’t come to close. Then, in the yard next door something big started to woof and bark and stir up a storm. It was pulling and it was pulling hard. I know the meanest dog is one on a chain, but this dog even intimidated me a bit. I looked down and I saw Bagels had her tail low and she was glancing around nervously. She couldn’t tell where to look and she was stepping in a disorganized fashion. She was really scared.

I tried to take control and reassure her. I gave her some easy commands. She followed them and I tried to reassure her. It had no effect. She was spooked and she wouldn’t lighten up until we were back in familiar territory. I conceded and we headed back the way we came. Past the temple, past the garage, past the school. We were back in her comfort zone. She was herself again. We kept on toward home and I picked up some noodles to eat for dinner. A bit later I let her play with the younger puppy next door. Bagels loves that because the puppy is less than a third of her size, she wins every time. That finally tired her out. She’s been sleeping for hours.