There are people who begin their mornings with meditation. They wake gently to the sound of birds, stretch their arms toward the heavens, drink lemon water, write three pages in a gratitude journal, and thoughtfully set an intention for the day.
I sit in my car and talk to the internet while dogs breathe directly onto the back of my head. We are not the same.
This week began with optimism, which really should have been my first warning. I had dogs to walk, things to accomplish, posts to make, stories to write, and apparently enough confidence to believe I was going to get through all of it like a functional adult. Adorable.
At one point, I found myself transporting the doodle horses. Calling them dogs feels misleading. These are not dogs.
These are sentient shag carpets with legs – long ones. They occupy approximately 147 percent of the available space in my vehicle despite there only being two of them. They have opinions – loud ones. They have hair. They have absolutely no understanding of personal boundaries. I am merely their chauffeur.
“Where to, gentlemen?”
“THE FOREST.”
“Excellent. Will there be mud?”
“OBVIOUSLY.”
Dog walking is one of those jobs that sounds peaceful when you describe it to people who have never done it. “Oh, you walk dogs? That must be so relaxing!”
Yes. Nothing relaxes the nervous system quite like holding several leashes while one dog discovers a squirrel, another urgently needs to investigate a leaf that may contain classified information, and a third suddenly plants all four feet into the ground because a garbage bin 200 metres away has offended him spiritually.
Meanwhile, I’m standing there like an underpaid air-traffic controller. “YOU go left. YOU stop eating that. That’s not food. WHY ARE YOU ROLLING IN THAT? DROP IT. I SAID DROP IT. Oh God. What even IS that?”
Then you get back into the car looking like you’ve survived a minor military operation. The dogs? Delighted. Ten out of ten. Best day ever. Would absolutely recommend.
By Tuesday, I had accepted that winning millions of dollars would greatly improve the situation. I don’t think this is unreasonable. Some people want money for luxury cars, tropical vacations and sprawling mansions. I would simply like enough money to continue wandering around with dogs without ever having to look at my bank account and whisper, “Well, that’s unfortunate.”
I don’t even need ridiculous wealth. I’m not asking for a yacht. I don’t need a private island. I just want the kind of money where an unexpected bill arrives and I say, “Huh,” instead of staring at it like it has personally betrayed my family.
So far, the lottery has been extremely uncooperative.
Rude.
Then Wednesday arrived, and apparently Wednesday was Wellness Wednesday, which is a lovely concept. Very aspirational. So I decided to talk about gratitude.
I was thankful for the weather. This is an important part of being Canadian because approximately 78 percent of our relationship with nature involves staring suspiciously at the sky. When the weather is nice, you appreciate it because you know it’s temporary.
“Oh, look! Sunshine!”
Enjoy those eleven minutes. Winter is watching.
But gratitude is gratitude, so I embraced it. I was thankful for the dogs. I was thankful for the breeze. I was thankful for the decent weather. I was thankful that nobody had dragged me face-first through a puddle.
Yet.
The word “yet” does a tremendous amount of work in the dog-walking profession.
Thursday brought humidity. Humidity is weather’s way of saying, “You know what would make today better? If your clothes stuck to you and your hair is glued to your face.” Nothing makes a person feel glamorous quite like stepping outside and immediately becoming damp despite not actually encountering water.
And curly hair LOVES humidity. By “loves,” I mean it interprets moisture as an invitation to abandon civilization. Every curl becomes independent. One goes north. Another goes east. Three establish their own government. By noon, your hairstyle has become a weather event.
But I was still grateful. There was a breeze. The dogs were happy (and mouthy AF). Everything was going to be okay.
This is called positive thinking.
It is closely related to denial.
Somewhere between the weather reports, gratitude sessions and doodle transportation, I also managed to keep up with my ongoing adventures on the internet. Because apparently walking dogs wasn’t enough. No. I needed hobbies.
So now there are stories. Missing-person cases. True crime. Unsolved mysteries. Random historical rabbit holes. Strange news stories. And whatever other subject grabs me by the brain at 11:47pm and says, “You know what we should research?”
No. No, I do not.
“We should learn everything about this extremely obscure thing immediately.”
I have to work tomorrow.
“IRRELEVANT.”
And that’s how it happens. One minute you’re a normal person. The next you’re seventeen browser tabs deep into something you had never heard of three hours earlier and thinking, “Well, I can’t stop NOW. I need to know what happened.”
Sleep is apparently optional when there is an unanswered question on the internet.
Then there’s the glamorous world of social media itself. You make the video. You say the thing. You add the captions. You post it. And occasionally you discover afterward that you have absolutely no idea what you were trying to say.
There are moments in these videos where even Present Me appears to be waiting patiently for Past Me to finish the sentence. She’s trying. Give her a minute. The thought is coming.
Probably.
This is also why captions are dangerous. Without captions, people might assume I said something profound. With captions, there is documentation. Evidence. A permanent written record of the exact moment my brain left the building.
And somehow, through all of this, the dogs remain the most emotionally stable members of the operation. They don’t care about algorithms. They don’t care whether the website is behaving. They don’t care whether a post performs well. They certainly don’t care that I was trying to maintain some semblance of professionalism.
They want three things: walk, sniff, snack.
That’s it.
They’ve cracked the code.
Maybe Wellness Wednesday should actually be run by dogs. “Today’s mental-health exercise is to go outside, sniff something interesting, drink some water, scream at a squirrel and take a nap.”
I would attend that seminar.
And that’s basically the week. I walked dogs. I talked to my phone. I discussed gratitude. I complained about humidity. I transported doodle horses. I fell down internet rabbit holes. I contemplated becoming wealthy. I survived my own hair. And somehow I arrived at the end of it still reasonably functional.
Was it graceful? Absolutely not.
Was it productive? Debatable.
Did I know what I was doing the entire time?
HAHAHAHAHAHA.
No.
But the dogs got walked. The stories got written. The posts went up. The doodle horses were successfully transported. Everybody survived. And nobody called the authorities.
I’m counting it as a win.
Besides, tomorrow is another day. Another opportunity. A fresh start. A chance to wake up, approach life with renewed optimism, look confidently toward the future and say, “Okay. Today I’m going to have my shit together.”
And somewhere in the back seat, a dog will immediately throw up.
Because apparently the universe enjoys comedy too. 😂🐾
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