Taking the dog for a walk

A walk, for the dog, consists first of noticing that you're donning outside gear. He may have been asleep (or pretending to be asleep) up until that point, but suddenly he's wide awake, desperate to go out, racing round in mad circles, scrabbling at the door.

The next stage is seeing how soon it will be, after we get out of our gate, before he suddenly feels the need to evacuate his bowels. Sometimes it's so soon I simply march back inside the property and dispose of the little bag of goodies before we go any further. (Why he can sit inside all day holding on, I don't know. It's not as if he's incapable of getting himself out through the dog door.)

Anyway, at any point after that we're actually heading home. I may not know it, but every step we take away from the house, is, for the dog, part of the return trip. And by the time we get to the gate again, whether it be twenty minutes or sixty, he will be desperate to get inside the door.

And yet, no sooner have I removed his lead, than he takes one look at it and assumes I'm taking him out for a walk again.