Give the Gift of Presence
It is presence — not presents — that are the best gifts of all
Every day when I walk my German shepherd past our neighbor’s house, Zeke casts longing eyes towards their front door. Snorting behind the glass panels flanking the front doorway is Cinder, their boxer dog. Zeke whines and pulls, Cinder snorts, and I tug him away yet again, whispering, “Not today. They have to go to work, and we do, too.”
When Zeke was a puppy, Cinder helped him learn how to walk up our long, curving, tree-dark driveway. It must have looked scary to an eight-week old puppy just learning about leashes, collars, and this strange phenomenon known as the “walk.”
Zeke wasn’t one to pull on the leash. Not forward, that is. Instead, he threw himself on the ground, grabbing the leash with his mouth and enjoying the world’s greatest tug toy, or pulling backwards and screaming like we were killing him. No amount of coaxing would get him up the scary driveway.
In desperation, I texted our new neighbors. “Can you bring Cinder down the driveway? Maybe we can lure Zeke up to the road for his walk if he follows Cinder and she shows him it isn’t scary.”
It worked. Now Zeke loves his walks. But he always pauses at our neighbor’s house, straining towards their yard where he once played with Cinder…
