Dog Tired Running

by Rob Shave

I was only forty-three, but my arteries were coated with cheese and my waist size was quickly approaching my chest size. Thirteen years before I had been an active triathlete. "What happened?" you ask. Kids and career--that's what happened.

Then one day Jenn said, "Let's get a dog." Of course, Joel and Anna loved the idea instantly. "Yeah Dad! Can we? Please?"

Two weeks of scanning the classifieds for puppies and we ended up at Betty's farm to see a litter of the cutest little two-week old fur balls you could imagine. "Two are already sold," said Betty (natural sales person).

"I want a red one," said Joel. "Oh Dad, look at the tiny grey one. It's the runt. Can we get that one? Please? It's so cuuuute."

If you are a parent with more than one child, then you know what I had to do. Two kids, two dogs, but not just any dogs. These were running dogs: Siberian Huskies. We named the red one Blaze and the grey one became Cirrus.

The two pups stayed in the cute, loveable, cuddly stage for about four months, until mid February. By then the novelty had worn off. They were beginning to pull hard during their walks, and even the 1-K trail around the lake wasn't enough to satisfy their natural urges.So began the energetic and rambunctious months, which was the beginning of my own voyage out of the Land of Wheeze.

By June they had settled into their present pattern: the "Eat-poop-sleep-RUN" stage. And like all working Huskies, they've pulled a dead weight (me) along behind. Except that now, 20 months after the little poopers first nestled into P4D (prison for dogs), I am no longer a dead weight. I am the Alpha runner. Okay, maybe not the lead runner, but the boss runner (at least, most of the time).

You think you can run? You think of yourself as fit? Come along for a Husky run and we'll see.

4:00 p.m. Blaze lifts his yellow-eyed gaze to me as I get up from my home office desk. He sits up on the couch, (their couch) stretches, then tracks my progress as I change into shorts and tee-shirt. If Cirrus is still lounging he begins his daily warm-up rumble to wake her up.

By the time I'm dressed with keys and water bottle in hand, they've given up their growls, yips, nips and stand-up paw wrestling, and are panting by the front door. Padding along behind, they wait until the rear car door is open then hop up onto the back seat.

Five minutes later, we arrive at the trail--or rather, the beginning of a 15 kilometre network through scrub, hardwood forest, abandoned farmlands, sandy river banks and mosquito breeding swamps. The dogs become intent as I pull the car onto a grassy parking space along the dirt track. Cirrus licks my face as a gesture pre-run thanks. Blaze just waits and watches; I often wonder if Betty bred more wolf into him than dog.

Out of the car, I admonish them to stay with me, come when called, and not to kill everything that moves. (Wasted words for the most part.) Then I open the door the way the gates open at horse races. In seconds, they are blurs of fur at the first bend and I'm racing to catch up.

Panting. The sudden thud of eight feet running behind to catch up. Two lupine-canine forms loping along on either side; a pack in love with the feeling of movement. Breathing. Leaping over roots and rocks. Breathing. The smell of leaves, of mud, of decomposition and growth. The feel of green. Then a dash off the trail after a wild turkey or a rabbit.

I charge after them jumping logs and gullies, crashing through brush, around boulders and trees. Out of breath! "It's hopeless guys, we can't fly!" Then a grateful jog back to the trail and they follow. Sometimes slow, sometimes a sprint, but after 30 minutes we're at the swamp and we've settled into the endurance pace. We enter ... the Zone.

If you run, you know that place. Every stride is efficient, every breath perfectly timed. Muscles and joints working as they were made to work. Lungs filling. Heart pumping. Blood flowing. Mind drifting with the air you move through. No sense of struggle, no sense of pushing it. No sense of time. Maybe only for a few minutes, sometimes more than half an hour until I'm suddenly back at old scout camp near the trail head.

But the Zone is where the three of us--man and dogs--run for the sake of running. Running on the most natural athletic track on Earth. Running because we love to run. Running because we need to run.

Then we're done. Tired yet energetic. Another day, another dose. We climb into the car, re-enter the normal world, and drive home.

Each season is different. The dogs love the winter the best--born for it with all that fur. Snow makes the running silent, except for breathing. And moonlight over fresh snow in the forest - that has to be where they will go when they die. My favourite is the fall--reds, golds and yellows, the smell of leaves, the clarity of blue sky and cool air. Or maybe the first spring day when the ground is still soft enough to run the entire route barefoot with occasional mud squishing between my toes. But every season is good.

I think of all the air that must have passed in and out of my lungs, all the smells, all the variety of colour, all the ground that my feet have covered. All the times I have lain down with the Blaze and Cirrus in the back yard straw, after the run, and enjoyed the simple pleasure of being dog tired.

© 2001 Rob Shave -- used with permission