I wish I could smell like my dog

I let the dog take me for a walk last week.

She hadn’t been well and clearly wasn’t enjoying the walks I’d been in charge of – trailing along behind me, stopping every time I looked round – so instead of playing yet another game of Grandmother’s Footsteps, I gave her the lead.

We started and finished in the small patch of woods near my house. It became quickly evident that, given the choice, the dog would be very happy sniffing at lots of things, weeing on some of them, and then going home. Several long minutes were spent at one patch of nettles alone, as she conducted her forensic investigation.

Now that it was my turn to trail behind her, I got a tough lesson in ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’. I want Movement and Progress when I take the dog out. This isn’t a walk, it’s a sniff! I fretted, as she circled a clump of grass for the third time. The dog moved on, but all too soon a voice in my head was shrieking, You’re going back to that pile of stones and broken bricks again? Really!?

But while I was standing there shifting from foot to foot, fighting the urge to stride off, I experienced the woods differently. I was looking down, rather than across; into, instead of beyond. I wasn’t just hearing birdsong, I was listening to birds. And, of course, there were the smells – sweet and bitter, familiar and curious.

I wish I could say that I got down on all fours, thrust my nose into a bunch of weeds and entered a magical, olfactory world denied to other humans. Sadly, I’m short of 100 million scent glands or so. But putting the dog in charge for a change put me back in touch with my senses. It enlivened a familiar landscape. And it reminded me that going for a walk doesn’t have to be putting one foot in front of the other. Sometimes it’s good to follow your nose.