The parks’ people,

khaki-clad,

daypacks stuffed

with official documents

and some granola

bars, surely,

stopped and looked

around at us jogging

up from behind.

I quipped, dog leash

in hand, “I know

I have to have the

Chocolate Lab on a

six-foot leash, but

does the leash need

to be in my hand?”

Slightly officious,

and somewhat

less than amused, one

stated, ”There’s

a joker on

every trail,” and then the

other

said, rhetorically,

“Of course.”

We stopped and chatted

while the dog took the

opportunity to collapse

on the ground after

the thirty-minute

jog on leash because

labs just want to have

fun, stop, sniff, pee, poop

and then catch up in a

real romp but

could not.

The officials mentioned a

remote but not

too far park where dogs

get to run free.

“The dog will love it, “

they opined. We went and

jogged up and down and up

and down steep sand dunes,

sand filling our

running shoes as we went.

Eventually, we arrived

back where we had

started barely able to

lift our sand laden shoes.

Collapsing on a log to

empty the shoes, we

sighed and the dog

just wagged his

big behind being

wagged

by his big bushy

tail as if to ask, “Can

we come back?

Please, please,

please?”