MAX!

We went for a walk yesterday and when we were at the bottom of the very last hill we had to climb, we spotted a little white dog frisking around at the top of the hill. We weren't particularly afraid of this dog because while I've heard that little yappy dogs are more prone to biting, I'm rather less protective of my ankles than I am of, say, my jugular, so I still find little dogs less intimidating that big dogs. 

So we kept on walking up the hill.

For the record, there is another dog in our neighbourhood who we will turn around for. Like, if we see that ginormous thing is loose, we'll just turn around and walk the long way home, adding almost a mile to our trip but, like, whatever. It's fine. This one time we were out on a family walk and the four kids ahead of us turned the corner of our little loop—the final stretch toward home—and then about thirty seconds later they all rounded the corner, heading back towards Andrew, Alexander, and I (we're slow because Alexander is slow) as fast as they could. 

"That dog must be out," I said to Andrew.

"Dog's out!" the kids panted as they shot past us, heading for home the long way around.

That dog is a nightmare.

But, this little white dog was not a nightmare, so we kept walking.

As we rose to the top of the hill we spotted an elderly gentleman on what appeared to be an electric scooter at first glance, but upon further inspection turned out to be a mini ride-on lawnmower. It was noisy and stank of gasoline and it seemed to be protesting about the hill it was trying to climb and the little old man was guiding it up the street, waving his cane, and shouting, "MAX! MAX! MAX!"

He said something to us—we couldn't hear what because of the lawn mower engine was drowning him out—but he was waving his cane and pointing at his dog, Max. So we helped him corral Max home. We tried to pick Max up a few times but, honestly, none of us know how to pick up dogs. I've held a few dogs in my lifetime and they always weird me out a bit because they're not very flexible. Like, cats and babies kind of melt into your arms when you pick them up but dogs remain solid, quivering masses of energy. I don't understand them. 

Plus, Max didn't particularly want any of us to pick him up. He was barking and running around in circles and...we didn't know what to do about that. So we just followed behind lawnmower guy. He shouted "MAX!" and waved his cane in the air. And we prevented Max from running in our direction. And eventually our little procession got Max home. 

We spent the entire afternoon thinking about how ridiculous our caravan must have looked, with little Max running around barking his head off, the old man on a lawnmower with his waving cane, a mom pushing a stroller, and four kids corralling that runaway pup.