“Here,” Maya said, handing me an armful of leashes. “I usually take them off when we drive, because it’s a choking hazard if they get tangled. But they tend to rush the door and get really excited when they know we’re going on a walk, so you have to be careful and make sure they don’t go running when you open it.”
I nodded, and even as I took the leashes, I was realizing that I’d let this go way too far. My competitive instinct had kicked in, but this was getting ridiculous. Was there a way to turn this around at this point without being rude? I set about untangling the leashes, trying to work through the possibilities. After a moment I concluded that there was really no way to tell her that she needed to get back in the car, drive me back to the coffee shop, and probably really confuse the dogs as a result. I needed to just get through this, and then I could walk away and never have to tell anyone that I got dressed up to try to be a dog walker. I had a feeling Toby would never let me hear the end of it if she found out.
Maya opened the door, and then there was a scramble, with the dogs all barking at once, everyone trying to get out the door first. I handed her the leashes, she snapped them on collars, and then we were standing on the side of the road, with four dogs trying to go in four directions. I had ended up with Jasper, even though he was by far the biggest of the dogs. Maya had a pug, some kind of shaggy mutt, and something that looked like a small collie. “Are you okay with him?” she asked, as she arranged the leashes so that all three were in one hand. “Jasper always seems to get tangled with the other dogs, so it’s easier if he walks by himself.”
“Sure,” I said, a little uncertainly, wrapping the leash around my wrist once, then once again. I was pretty sure I’d walked a dog before. I had to have, right? I was struggling to remember if I’d ever walked my ex Nathan’s dog when Maya started walking and Jasper, clearly not wanting to be left behind, lunged after her. I ran in my heels to catch up, feeling my feet already protesting.
“Great day, right?” Maya asked, looking over her shoulder at me as I caught up with Jasper.
“Uh-huh,” I said, barely listening as I tried to get a tighter grip on the leash, but I pulled a little too hard, and Jasper was yanked back by his neck. I was worried that he would be mad and would lunge again, or worse, start growling or snapping, but he seemed to forgive me instantly, just going back to sniffing the ground. I didn’t know how this was going to work with all these dogs, if they’d start to fight with each other or something, but they all seemed pretty well behaved, trotting along in a line. One of them would want to sniff a tree or a rock, and the others would either join in the sniffing or simply sit and wait. Jasper, despite his size, seemed pretty easy to control, responding immediately when I pulled back on the leash.
“Here’s what I was thinking,” Maya said, looking over at me with an easy smile as I glanced up at her briefly before returning all my attention to Jasper. I didn’t understand how she was able to do it—wasn’t this taking all her concentration? She had three dogs in front of her, after all. “We walk them around this loop, and then there’s a little grassy area. It’s not quite a park, but the dogs love it.”
“Actually,” I started, taking a breath to tell her that we should probably wrap this up quickly, since the job wasn’t for me, when all the dogs started barking as one. I looked around, wondering if maybe there was a squirrel or something, when I saw there was another dog and owner coming toward us.
“So, here’s a moment for a lesson!” Maya said brightly, though I could tell there was a tiny bit of stress in her voice. “When you have a bunch of dogs together like this, they kind of form a pack mentality and can sometimes scare the other dog. Everyone’s trying to make friends; they just don’t know the best way to go about it.”
“Okay,” I said, tightening Jasper’s leash around my wrist again, feeling my heart pound when the barking got louder as the other dog got closer. I squinted against the sun, which was right behind the dog and his owner, blurring them out. When they came into view a moment later, though, I realized I knew them—both of them. It was the guy and his runaway dog—Bertie—from two days before.
The guy must have recognized me at the same time, because he smiled and held up his hand to wave—the same hand that was holding his leash. His dog clearly saw his opportunity and took off at a run toward us as the guy grabbed for where the leash had been but only got empty air.
“Okay,” Maya said now, her voice raised over the barking of the dogs, who were going into a frenzy, all of them straining against their leashes, “I’ll try and grab him while you—”
But whatever she’d been about to say was lost as Bertie ran right up to me, barking and tail wagging wildly. He tried to jump up on me, which honestly would have been okay—it would give me an opportunity to try to grab his leash—but Jasper seemed to take this as some kind of threat, because suddenly his bark changed from what had been a hi, other dog! bark to a get the hell away from me and the girl with the leash bark. In between barks, there was now a low growl at the back of his throat, and the other dogs, sensing this, started to bark as well, with a definite note of back off in their voices.
“It’s okay,” I said, trying to put myself between the two dogs while feeling this was really not where I wanted to be. “Just—”