Same Dog

“You’re a strong woman!” yelled a pick-up driver stopped at the uphill intersection I was pedaling through, “I love it!”

Laughter fueled my wheels.

This made a nice change from another pick-up driver in another intersection who threatened to run me over as I was crossing (legally) on foot. I stopped in the middle and looked at him. “You better not.” In response, he roared by before I reached the corner.

Same dog. Meaning: same person, same town, different interactions.

When Emmett and I first moved to Hicks Lake, he decided to tour the environs without me one day. We’d just moved from Kamilche, a more rural area, but I wasn’t concerned. We were bonded; he always returned. He did this time, too, but with weird pieces of rope around his neck. He looked like a many-times caught fish.

Animal Control turned up fifteen minutes later. A woman across the road had reported a wild wolf dog on the loose. With a gold name tag hanging from his collar? When I walked over to her house, she said, “I was terrified!” Yet she caught him, and tied him up in her back yard. Emmett cleverly chewed through his bindings and escaped.

This in contrast to the usual adulation he incurred. Once we abandoned the lake shack, he became the Mayor of Olympia. He had more friends than I did. But every once in awhile, someone did hate on him. Which had nothing to do with the dog, and everything to do with the hater.

Love? Hate? Same dog. Same Shé.