Bees, paws and prancing

When I got my dog, she was in bad shape. Hoarse from whining, ears terribly infected, kennel cough and quite shy. She came out of it – several vet appointments, prescriptions and a significant amount of love and attention later, she was an amazing little puppy. About a year old, she loved other dogs and was thrilled with people as well. She’d sit at the sliding glass door in my first floor apartment and watch people go by. When I pulled in the parking lot, I’d see her ears perk and she’d leave her sunny spot at the door to meet me at the interior entrance to our rented rooms.

Living in an apartment, we took a few walks each day. Sometimes just wandering the property, others taking to the sidewalks and moving up and down the hills of our neighborhood. After building up some stamina over several weeks, we set out on Saturday morning for a couple hours. I walked, trying to burn some calories, and she explored – bounding from my side to smell trees, grass, signs – all sorts of fascinating items.

Energy waning, I started to attempt some guess at where we were. My sense of direction is shockingly bad. I get all turned around and can’t see how to get where I want to be. But I squinted across a park and realized we could cross it and end up relatively close to where we lived. I was distracted, looking around and making sure I wasn’t making some typical travel error that would culminate in my confused arrival at somewhere opposite than intended. I happened to glance back at Chienne – she had stopped to sniff some weeds at the edge of the grassy area – and saw some bees.

She yelped before I could warn or tug her away.

I hurried to her side, pulling her closer to me, determined to squash any bugs who dared injure my girl, and examined her little paw. Touching the pad gently, rubbing my fingertips across to make sure the stinger was out, I pronounced her relatively sound.

“We’ll put medicine on it when we get home.” I promised and kissed her head. “We just have to get there first.” With that, we started off, walking slowly. She was fine – barely limping, looking around at the park she hadn’t seen before. But I fretted, watching her closely, wondering if her newly-discovered allergies extended to evil bee stings. She stumbled briefly and I gasped, stopped and picked up her paw.

“You poor thing.” I crooned, kneeling in front of her and looking at her paw again. “I don’t see a stinger, sweetheart, but I know it hurts. You’re so brave and tough to deal with such a horror. I’m so sorry. I didn’t protect you – I get lost sometimes and wanted to be home because I’m tired. You’re such a good girl though – you don’t deserve to have your poor little paw hurt.” Kissing her once more on the head, I tried to urge her along.

She made it two steps before stopping, looking up at me pitifully and raising her injured paw.

Near tears, I knelt down, remained unable to find the problem – no swelling, no stinger, and picked her up and began to carry her across the park.

She weighed nearly 40 pounds at the time and I’m not in the best physical condition. I can walk around, but weight training? Not so much – now or then. So I rapidly reached my limit. We walked for maybe 2 minutes, her head resting comfortably on my shoulder while she contentedly watched the park go by.

“I can’t do it.” I told her breathlessly. “I just can’t. It’s too far! And you’re a bit heavy.”

Placing her gently on the ground, I tugged at her collar and watched with dismay while she sat and offered her paw once again. I knelt in front of her and tried to explain. I finally picked her up again and made a little progress before giving up.

“You have to walk.” I told her, trying to be firm and feeling as though I had failed my precious little friend. She just stared at me, paw in the air, until a man rounded the corner ahead with his dog. She perked up immediately, standing up and prancing toward the new arrivals. I frowned when she put weight on her paw with no ill effects, following as she pulled me along at a brisk pace, saying softly, “So it was all an act? You’ve been fine all along?”

I play pitiful a lot myself - probably taught my dog to do it that day in the park. It's suprisingly effective - I find that people in general are quite kind and in the face of distress, will attempt some help or comfort. Blogging is an excellent example. Not only does it offer an outlet for all the negative garbage that's in my head, but there's also some chance that someone will offer a story so I feel less alone, or a kind word or the hope that tomorrow things will improve. The problem is that sometimes I start to prance for no apparent reason - hurt paw forgotten in some lovely distraction. So I'm wondering, amidst all my whining that is completely sincere and filled with genuine pain at times, how much I do it in an attempt to get someone to offer to carry me across a park.

Rather manipulative when I consider it that way, and it's not a goal of mine to act that way. So I'm resolving to try a bit harder to consider my problems relative to how very lucky I am. This "poor me" mood of late is getting old. Perhaps I'm just holding up my paw when it's been relatively fine all along. Just a tiny bee sting that, while unpleasant, is hardly a reason to refuse to continue a happy little walk.

Right?