It is an uncommon occurrence for my wife and me to embark on a midweek dog walk together, but on this particular afternoon, I find myself with some spare time and decide to join her. Our joint strolls necessitate a degree of negotiation, as my wife anticipates a baseline level of conversation, which is not typically a feature of my weekday afternoons. To address this, we take turns delivering monologues of complaint, with my wife leading the charge. Being an attentive listener, I cannot help but notice that many of her grievances seem to revolve around me. Eventually, she runs out of steam.
"Anyway," she says, "thank you for listening to my podcast. Now it's time for your podcast."
"Thanks, and welcome," I reply. "I have been having problems with my email."
"Oh dear," my wife responds.
"It keeps freezing for no reason, and then I have to Force Quit to shut it down, but almost as soon as I open it again ..."
"Quick, hide!" she suddenly shouts, darting behind the trunk of a large oak tree.
"What?" I exclaim, confused.
"Take that tree," she instructs. I obediently position myself behind another oak and hold my breath, imagining the imminent approach of someone we dislike. However, when I peer around the tree, it becomes clear that we are actually hiding from our own dog.
"Really?" I question, incredulous.
"Ssh!" my wife insists.
The dog is approximately fifty metres ahead of us, lapping at a puddle. Suddenly, she looks up in a panic and dashes off across a field in pursuit of a stranger. When she gets close enough to realise the woman is not my wife, the dog turns and races in frantic circles before finally spotting my wife behind the tree and making a beeline for her. Her relief is so palpable that she begins to leap and twist in the air, reminiscent of a hooked marlin.
"You found me!" my wife exclaims cheerfully.
"Bit cruel," I remark.
"It's part of our training," she explains. "It's supposed to teach them to stay in your orbit."
The Journey to Intermediate Dog School
At the end of December, my wife and the dog returned home from the final evening of dog school with a certificate bearing the word "Completed" alongside no other accolades.
"Not even 'successfully completed'?" I had inquired.
"I don't think they were prepared to go that far," my wife had replied. "Anyway, I've signed her up for the Intermediate class."
I remain largely in the dark about what transpires at Intermediate Dog School, apart from the hiding exercises. I am also uncertain how far my wife intends to pursue the dog's education, or whether they might eventually branch out into forensics, perhaps, before embarking on missions to locate decomposing corpses for the police. All I know is that, despite all those lessons, the dog still has a penchant for courting trouble, especially when she is out with me.
A Park Encounter Gone Awry
The next day at lunchtime, my wife arrives home to find the dog and me on the sofa, both looking rather glum.
"How was the park?" she asks.
"We had a fight with Violet," I confess.
"Oh no," my wife says, concerned.
"But even Violet's owner agreed that Violet started it," I add. "Also, Violet was unscathed, and this one has a big tooth mark in her neck."
"I don't even know Violet," my wife admits.
"Violet," I clarify, "is violent."
An Awkward Ball Swap Incident
The following morning, we leave the house a bit later and find the park nearly empty. I throw the ball for the dog for a few minutes without any issues. This is followed by a mildly awkward incident when my dog and another dog swap balls and then refuse to swap back, running circles around me and the other owner. The situation persists well beyond the point of amusement.
I do not particularly care which ball I end up with, as I know for a fact we originally stole ours from another dog, but there seems to be some principle at stake.
"It might be easier to swap dogs," I suggest. The other owner remains silent.
Eventually, my dog grows bored, drops the other dog's ball, and wanders across the field to a large hole, which she proceeds to excavate further. After a few minutes of this, I decide to hide, for training purposes.
The Training Exercise Takes a Weird Turn
While the dog's head is buried in the hole, I crouch low behind a tree and wait. I take out my phone to check the time, answer a couple of texts, and then scan the headlines. Each time I peer around, I see the dog still digging. The longer it continues, the weirder I feel.
Finally, after seven minutes, the dog stops digging and begins to head my way. She ambles straight past the tree, sniffing the ground, and then turns to see me crouched there. I stand up. The dog looks at me, head tilted, utterly bewildered.
"That's right," I say. "You came here with me. Remember?"
