Not because I needed the exercise. But because walking with a dog gives you something that is genuinely hard to find anywhere else. The chance to slow down, breathe properly, and just be somewhere without needing to explain why.
Walking with a dog is very different from walking alone. And if your dog is anything like Lana, you will know exactly what I mean.
The zig-zag effect
Lana walks in a pattern I can only describe as a zig-zag investigation of everything that has ever existed.
Every interesting smell. Every leaf. Every bird. Every suspicious-looking stick. What should have been a ten-minute walk becomes thirty. Not because the distance was far. Because Lana has made it absolutely clear that we are not leaving this particular patch of grass until she has gathered every available piece of information from it.
And somewhere between the third detour and the fourth investigative stop, something shifts in you. The urgency you brought with you from the house quietly dissolves.
You are not rushing anymore. You are just walking. Really walking. In the actual world, in the actual moment, with no particular place to be except here.
That is one of the greatest things Lana has reminded me of. We do not need to rush at all.
The walks that become more
There are the beach walks. The park walks. The "let's just get out of the house for a bit" walks. The ones where we do not really have a destination. We just go.
Marshie obviously does not come. He has made it very clear that being carried around like royalty indoors is much more his style. Someone has to keep an eye on the house, I suppose.
So it is just us. Lana and me. Taking in whatever the day has to offer.
Honestly, some of our best moments happen during those walks. Not because anything remarkable occurs. But because we are both just present. Two beings side by side, doing life together, without any agenda beyond getting back before dark.
When we decided to get a new addition after Chrystal passed, our first thought was: this puppy must see places. Must go everywhere we go. Must experience the world.
We did not realise then how much of our world she would simply become.
Part of your story, not just your day
I realised it one day when I was scrolling through photos on my phone. Lana was in almost every single one. Not because we planned it that way. She was just always there. In the background of the braai photos, the holiday pictures, the random Tuesday afternoon shots that do not really mean anything until years later when they mean everything.
One day they are a puppy trying to eat the leash. The next they are part of every routine you have. Morning walks. Weekend adventures. Coffee stops. Road trips. The ordinary moments and the special ones. They are there for all of it.
Dog owners understand each other in a particular way because of this. There is a shared language, a silent recognition. We know that when a dog walks beside you long enough, they stop being part of your day. They become part of your story.
Lana has no idea how much joy she has brought to our lives simply by being there. She thinks we are just going for a walk.
I know we are making memories.
The footprints in the sand
Sometimes when we are walking on the beach, I will look back at the trail behind us.
My footprints. Lana's paw prints. A path showing exactly where we have been.
The funny thing is that those footprints never last very long. A wave comes in. The sand shifts. And within minutes it is as if they were never there at all.
But the memories do not disappear the same way.
The beach walks. The muddy paws. The sticks she proudly carried as if she had discovered treasure. The photos we stopped to take. The detours we never planned. The adventures we almost did not go on.
Those things stay.
And maybe that is what I have come to realise about sharing life with a dog. They leave marks in places we do not always notice at first.
Not just on the beach.
Not just in photo albums.
Not just in the routines we build around them.
But in our stories.
