When What is Supposed to Happen, Doesn't

My Golden Retriever knows How to Self-Regulate Better Than I do.

Harriet taking care of herself—something we could all learn from.

Recently, Harriet and I visited my dad and stepmom on the coast of Southern Oregon. We do this a couple of times a year and the week is always full of family comfort food, cribbage and Hi-Balls, and amazing dog treats from Grandma. One of our other favorite things to do while visiting is to make the fifteen-minute walk to Harris State Beach. The beach is a long curve enclosed with rocks the size of buildings. There are areas of small waves and large waves and even no waves. We go mid morning when it’s cool and almost have the entire beach to ourselves. We both love the beach. As soon as I step on a beach I can feel myself actually breathe —it’s not a conscious thought, my body knows where it is and takes a unguarded breath. Harriet’s in hog heaven here. She runs like a bucking bronco as long and sporadically as she wants. At this beach in particular, there is a big, somewhat smelly lagoon she swims in, and lots and lots of sand to roll in. If we bring a chair to sit in she will dig a three foot deep hole right smack in front of where you are sitting. And the birds, omg the birds. A flock of thirtyish seagulls will be lounging on the beach, minding their own business when here comes this miniature bucking bronco thinking she’s going to catch one or two. They just stand there as she makes her run at them and when she’s about ten feet away, they begrudgingly flap their wings, rise up into the air, and land again about thirty feet away. You can almost see them rolling their eyes at the absurd hand-fed dog that is wasting their time. The look on Harriet’s face can be found in the dictionary under the word, “Bliss.”

A day on Harris State beach on a previous trip.

On this trip, the first two days we were here we drove to a beach a couple of miles north because it’s bigger and with the tide being in there’d be more beach to run around on. We parked, and Harriet dragged me down the path to the beach. I let her off leash and the bucking bronco went running amok. I took off my shoes and ran amok while making our way down the beach. Sadly at this beach, there were no lagoons to swim in but still, Harriet rolled in the sand and chased some birds and found lots of amazing things to sniff, including a partially decomposed bird that I am so grateful, for whatever reason, she decided not to roll in. As much fun as we had, Harriet called it quits earlier than normal.

The next day we went back to the same beach. I undid her leash, took off my shoes, and the bucking bronco bronco ran in a giant circle. Instead of heading down the beach, she ran right back up a path to the parking lot. No matter how loud or sweet or angry or panicked or relaxed I yelled her formal recall word or the actual recall word “TREATS!” that seems work, she didn’t come back. I had to run after her (ya ya ya I know, never chase your dog, well you haven’t met my dog and I had no idea what I was doing when she was growing up - that’s a whole different post which you will get a chance to read) in my bare feet on a path littered with recently cut up blackberry bushes. I caught up with her and she just wanted back in the car.

The next day I made the decision to walk to the beach. We both need to walk. Mid-morning I said, “ Does somebody want to go on a walk?!” and Harriet jumped in the air and started her Let's GO ON A WALK NOW NOW NOW PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE NOW MOM MOM NOW PLEASE NOW WALK MOM NOW!!!! dance so we suited up and poop bagged up and headed out. We walked for an easy five minutes and Harriet peed and then we walked another minute and she pooped and then Harriet turned around and started to head home. I said to her, “What? Where are you going? The beach is this way.” I got her turned back and she took around eight steps and stopped. “Dude. We’ve been looking forward to this for months. What is your deal?” (All dialogue is actually what I said out loud to her) So I did what you are supposed to do to get a dog to pay attention to you and talked like a chipmunk that just won the lottery and was handed a gallon of their favorite ice cream that happens to be magical and contains zero calories. Harriet took a couple of steps in the direction of the beach and then sat down. “Harriet. What is your deal?? LET’S GO.” “PLEASE. HARRIET.” She just looked at me with that smile on her face like she had no idea what I was talking about. My God. Why won’t Harriet go? Why is she quitting? She looks fine. She still has a smile on her face. She loves this walk and knows it ends up at the beach. I’ve never had her stop on this walk. Why can’t I get her to walk? Arrggghh. I felt myself start to get frustrated and even angry. My shoulders began to scrunch up into my ears. My breathing became short and tight. This is what we do. We walk to the beach and play on the beach. It’s the only exercise I get. I can’t get 10,000 steps in without going for a walk. No matter how much I said encouraging words in the voice of a chipmonk high on cocaine, she just continued to sit there, with a smile on her face. Disgusted, I started to walk back towards the house and she popped right up and eagerly walked ahead of me.

I really needed to walk. So I thought I’d walk by myself and leave Harriet with my dad. I’d only made it about a hundred feet when I heard Harriet barking frantically because I’d left her. I kept walking hoping she’d stop. She didn’t. So I turned around and went home. Defeated. Angry.

The front part of my brain knew being frustrated was stupid but the rest of me felt my old friend anger that starts in the very middle of me and drives through all of me. Before getting PTSD I didn’t know what this was but now I do. They say anger is the flip side of helplessness. So instead of focusing on what you are “angry” about, ask yourself, what do you feel helpless about? During this episode, I apparently forgot all about that lesson.

I returned to the house, took off my shoes, and dropped onto the couch. I sent my wife a text, “Ug. Harriet will NOT go for a walk! And of course, she won’t let me go on a walk.” My ever wise wife wrote back, “Is she tired?” I shit you not but the moment I received that text Harriet jumped on the couch, put her head in my lap, and fell asleep. She didn’t move (which meant I didn’t move) for two hours. And there it was, clear as day. Nothing was wrong, I wasn’t a failure, and Harriet hadn’t lost her love for playing on the beach—she was tired. I was so wrapped up in what I thought was supposed to happen that I failed to see my sweet dog was simply tired. What is ironic here is that I have gotten so much better at recognizing this feeling of anger vs helplessness but when I am tired, most of that gets thrown out the window. Harriet recognized she was tired and needed to rest; I failed to recognize how tired both of us were.

After spending that day resting, the next day I gave the beach another shot. There weren’t many birds, but the lagoon was full and we had the entire place to ourselves. And when we got home we both needed baths from playing in the sand.

Harriet living exiting the lagoon and about to roll in the seagull poop coeverd sand. Living her best life.