The weather is turning nicer here in God’s country, which means two things:

1. farmers can start complaining and
2. the possiblity exists for Clementine and I to take the wonderful and elusive long walk

(If you thought you read #1 wrong you didn’t. The farmers complain when the weather is nice because it means more work to do. They complain when the weather isn’t nice because it means a bad crop. You notice a certain consistency here.) But I’m not a farmer and so my options are limited with regard to the nice weather — Clementine and I went on a walk.

Since Clementine is a spaz dog, I’m not sure that the longer walk is a particular boon to her doggie soul. Because there’s like, more stuff to smell and there are places you haven’t! even! seen before!! and you just want to start running and running to get to it all but THEN there’s the whole LEASH thing, and THAT’S pretty annoying, and so sometimes it’s all just kind of … you know, too much. And by the time you get back to your own house, you’re kinda done in by it all.

It’s too bad that she didn’t see one of her favorite dog-walk buddies, like Otis the very-droopy-dachsund or Taco the chihuahua. That only leaves the homebodies — the fenced-in dogs — and there’s nothing that torques these guys off more than seeing a dog that isn’t fenced in. Consequently, as I’ve mentioned before, a lot of the walk is a matter of being barked at in different pitches and volumes and with differing levels of intensity. But I’ve become a bit of a connoisseur after all the pavement Clem and I have covered:

• Besides the very large brown shapeless hulk of a dog that generally starts things off, sometimes there’s a Sheltie that runs out as far as it can to see Clem and then back as far as it can to bark the news to everyone in the house, then back 2/3 of the way until it remembers the house, then 2/3 of that way until it remembers Clem. And about that time it finally just stops and gives me the most plaintive look of angst in the world. If it goes to the house, Clem won’t get barked at. If it goes to Clem, people in the house won’t hear it. AGH! You can almost see the cartoon exclamation points come out of its head. One day I expect to hear it say, “Oh MAN!!” and just drop dead from the effort.
• The Mutt & Jeff combo — Lhasa Apso and black Lab-esque mutt — usually are worth slowing down to take in. The black mutt still isn’t really that into it. The barks are spaced too far apart, the tail is wagging and you feel like his involvement has more to do with camaraderie than passion. But the Lhasa Apso more than makes up for it. It props itself up against the fence and hops up and down on its little back legs, never getting much actual height but putting out a lot of effort. And since it can’t bark as loud as the other dogs, it just does it non-stop, winding down as its oxygen runs out: RURRurrurrurrurrrrur (gasp) RURRURurr… Is it terrible of me to say that sometimes I hold Clementine up longer at that yard, just to see if he’ll just fall over backwards and lie there?
• There are a couple of leapers. There’s a golden retriever that’s in a smaller enclosure with a higher fence than most. I couldn’t figure that out until I noticed that though he’s a big dog, his idea of what to do under duress is try to leap the fence. And for a big dog, it’s amazing what he’s able to do. He usually has to run around a little, just to wind himself up. Then he hunkers down and springs straight up, getting about five feet up. Luckily for us, the only part that clears the fence is his head. But then, I have the impression he’s just doing it for kicks. Or maybe he’s showing off. “Hey baby, y’ever see anything like this before? Woo hoo! I can jump SO high!
• Less cute was the new leaper I saw on the long walk. He was startled to see us, and took a couple running jumps at the fence that looked like he meant business. Not a big dog, but he looked really motivated. But the fence held and we moved on. I resisted the impulse to thumb my nose, because that would be wrong.

So that’s it. Now I know what lies in a couple more blocks of my home town. And Clementine knows a little something about how things smell over there. We ought to compare notes.