I took our Miniature Dachshund out for her walk about an hour ago and she ran frenzied and happy the entire time, like she had never had the opportunity to test her legs before and might never again. The ball we use to play “fetch” was pretty much an after-thought. Heidi just sprinted around the perimeter of the schoolyard, yipping joyfully, her smiling tongue hanging out and her tail beating crazily. When she does this– at her dead sprint– she’s practically flying, her four legs off the ground, her ears blowing back like a girl’s ponytails on a roller coaster.
As we were playing a woman came out from her house across the street and watched us from her porch, her little, baby daughter in her arms.
“It’s Heidi, right?” she shouted out to me, “We just love Heidi! My daughter is crazy about her and we always watch from the window when you’re in the park. I feel like such a voyeur!” she smiled.
Of course, I had no idea that anybody had ever been watching us. However, I did recall one day– with equal parts embarrassment and pride– seeing a man holding a baby up to the window of the same house that this woman lived in, and watching, catching me while I clumsily tried to catch a snowflake on my tongue and Heidi sprinted after her ball.
No matter, I said a few things to this woman, mentioning that our dog was actually horrible at returning the ball to me but that it didn’t matter, that to see her tail– such a whirling dervish of joy– was sufficient reward for my plodding labours.
And suddenly, it was like a switch went off in the woman and her eyes lit up, “Yes, that’s just what’s it like with my daughter, only she doesn’t have a tail that I can see wagging, but I feel the same thing from her!”
And they watched for another couple of minutes, waved, and then returned into their lives, leaving me with the feeling that something kind of angelic had just taken place.