Every day, on my commute to work I drive through rural countryside, towards the (relative) urban landscape of “the city”. While listening to the radio, I pass countless cows and horses, barns and houses. After years I can probably drive the route blindfolded, and thanks to winter weather in Canada, that’s a skill we sometimes need. At one modest house, everyday, I see a dog. I notice him, because he looks like my old German Shepherd, except a bit older and stiffer. Also, our shepherd is at home in the warm, dry house, patrolling from couch to the bed with the others, occasionally barking at squirrels and deliveries, while we — the family — are off doing whatever it is us scent-challenged fur-less monkeys do during the day.

This dog, I glimpse him day in, day out. He is standing stiffly. He is walking slowly up the drive. He is in the rain, sometimes he’s in the snow curled up in a ball on the drive with a layer of snow on top of him. He is alone. Sometimes he’s walking in the fields, but mostly he’s on the driveway, watching.

Day after day I see him, and I get some sort of sad narrative of his outdoor life forming in my head in these twenty second glimpses: It’s early — I tend to leave early — and he’s always outside. I never see anyone there, there’s not even a car in the driveway. He is always looking distractedly down the road, waiting in the cold rain, or the winter snow. I point him out to my kids one day when I’m taking them to town for some reason, and I see the “awww” looks on their faces. That is not the way we like to treat a pet, and while I’m not one to push my view of dogs as family on others, this scene eats at me day after day, until it has made a pile so large I wrestle with thoughts of “I should do something.”

I imagine the sort of person I’d be talking to, and I imagine approaches to take to make it sound less preachy if I do confront them… I never really had the nerve to say anything, though. Many people treat dogs as tools on their farms, as security and as a helper in chores, and while it’s not my approach to have an “outdoor dog” (remember, this is Canada) if it’s not cruel it’s not really wrong, I guess. Not wrong enough that anything I’d say would fix it, anyway.

One day, I’m late for work. I was up all night working on a project, I got it done at 3am, I sent out emails saying I’d be late and slept in. Driving to work an hour or two later than usual, I’m amazed at how different the world is: Kids are out, buses are holding up the much heavier traffic, there’s daylight, even. Then, I come up to the house and I see the old dog. Only, he’s not lying there, he’s not moving stiffly this time, he’s jumping around, his tail is wagging, he’s a happy, animated guy. His front paws are up in a red pickup, and I see the owner slowly getting out, holding a lunchbox, obviously just off of a night shift wearing work clothes, and he’s petting the dog affectionately, smiling. As I wait for a school bus to turn, I see the dog follow the man into the warm house, and the door closes.

Not sure what an overall point is, but it’s a bit of an eye opener for me on my assumptions, anyway: I am actually really glad I didn’t get into some “hero mindset” and walk up to the house to give some meandering diatribe about cruelty. Instead, I now smile every time I pass that dog, as I now know why he’s looking down the road, waiting patiently.

Ron