Chasing Dreams

I joke that when we went dog shopping I took along a carpet sample. We came home with Sally; more than a simple source of hair in our house, she is an adorable Golden Retriever who completes our family.

Her bloodline is that of a hunter, but she's a house pet. It's like keeping a race car in the city, she can rev her engine to red-line but never feels the thrill of open road. I throw balls in the house... they often bounce around a corner and disappear, which is exactly what she does in hot pursuit. Often, she returns not with the ball but with one of her many stuffed ducks.

Before Sally, I had never met a dog that would look you straight in the eyes and not break her gaze. It was a dominance thing, I thought, that dogs would look away rather that maintain extended eye contact with you. But I don't think Sally knows she's a dog, she communicates with those big brown eyes and she can read minds with them too.

I was headed out the front door recently to shovel the walk after a heavy Spring snow and Sally stopped me at the door. "Can I go, can I go? Huh, huh?", her eyes pleaded, and so we went out together. The way she bounced across the yard made me wonder if that white stuff weren't flubber.

With some effort I cleared a path to the street and stopped to rest. It was snowing giant, heavy flakes of frozen Spring in total silence. There was no wind, no traffic, no people, just utter stillness buffered by a thick coat of pillowy white.

Down the hill I caught sight of the neighborhood duck (another story) flying low, up the middle of the un-tracked street, her wing tips clipping snow on the ground with every down-beat. I watched as she flew right past me, not six feet away, in complete silence... it was both beautiful and captivating.

Looking right, I saw Sally standing next to me. Her eyes locked on mine, they were the size of silver dollars, and they said to me "OMG!! Did you see the size of that stuffed duck?!". I smiled and she took off in a cloud of snow. The duck made a left at the corner, which is exactly what Sally did in hot pursuit.

When Sally sleeps in front of the fire she talks in muffled barks and her paws race against the sleep that binds them. She was bred to hunt and I knew right then what she's been chasing in her head. Not everyone finds the thing they were born to do, or comes face to face with their dreams.

Run Sally, run!