Walkies

Walkies is my favourite word. At first it annoyed me because it is baby talk. Why can’t she say “Let’s go for a walk”? But I play along and now I admit that I get very excited when she says “Walkies!”. It means freedom. Well, not quite. I am attached to a harness and lead but I do like to get out on the street and run like the clappers with the wind on my truffle nose.

She doesn’t like me running and pulling on the lead which I am very good at. I am a Westie after all. i have very strong chest muscles and I can be very powerful. This trotting politely beside her as we walk is not for me. It’s OK for other breeds like hoity-toity Poodles and no-legs Sausage Dogs and yappy Chihuahuas but a Westie wants to run. Run. Run. Run to catch a rabbit or a rat. I love running as fast as I can until I am pulling on the lead and then she has to start running to keep up with me. I turn my head and give her a big smile because I know I’ve won.

She won’t let me off the lead. She said I’ll run to the highway and play with the traffic. Then I’d get hit by a car and die and she’d be sad. Don’t be silly. I know the cars would stop for me. I am the bravest of dogs and the traffic wouldn’t dare challenge me.

Sometimes we go to the beach and I can run into the water. I can swim. Dog paddle. But I prefer to feel the sand under my paws. So I run in and out. She says I look like a drowned rat because my fur gets wet and sticks to my body.

And I like to run with the other dogs. It’s a beach especially for dogs. We all run and play together except those trotting dogs who play games like fetch ball and bring the ball back and drop it at their owner’s feet.

I am not a ball fetcher. I don’t like doing as I’m told. And a ball is not a rat or a bird or a rabbit. My forefathers didn’t fetch balls. We were ratters and hunted down the rats in the farm sheds on the Highlands and delivered them to our owners. There’s no triumph in delivering a lifeless ball.

When I was younger, she let me off the lead and I ran and ran and ran. She called me but I didn’t come back. Then I started frolicking with a whippet with the smoothest coffee brown hair who was coming in the opposite direction, so I ended but back where I started. She thought I would run up to her but the I kept running and she started chasing me.

She called out that we had to go home. But I didn’t want to. I was having the best time with my new best friend. Then he left me and ran back to his owner. I ran up to another dog, a little old-man Schnauzer. We rolled around for a while then his owner called his name and he ran off. So I just ran along the beach by myself. Now she was running after me and calling my name.

There was a man and lady ahead of me. They didn’t have a dog so I ran up to them with my tail wagging so I could sniff their feet. “Grab him,” she shouted. By the time they realised she wanted them to grab hold of me and stop me, I was off again. Then the man and lady where chasing me too and the three of them played a trick. They spread out and came at me from three directions, but I ran in the fourth direction which was up towards the sand dunes and I tried to hide in the rocks. But the man was suddenly in front of me and that was it. He grabbed hold of my neck and I had to stop.

What an adventure! It was the best game.

The next time we came to the beach I wanted to play the same game but she didn’t take my lead off. I could only run to the end of my lead and then wait for her to catch up. I still like the sand and the water but it’s not as much fun on the lead. She doesn’t understand I am a terrier, I need to run.