[nagdu] Sidewalk-less walking?

[Debby Phillips]

I'm really glad that there are people who like living in the 
country.  For me it was dreadful.  First of all, we were 14 miles 
from a small town of about 5'000 people.  The only way to get to 
town was for my husband to drive me.  We had about a half mile 
lane, which was nice to walk down, but it got pretty boring.  The 
main road that goes past that house is the county highway.  There 
are lots of big trucks that go up and down that road.  The other 
problem with it is that there were shoulders on the left side of 
the road, but then they would drop off and be on the right side 
of the road, with an edge that just dropped off.  Plus there were 
curves and trucks and cars would come around the curves quite 
fast.  So for me, it was total isolation.  I love living in 
Spokane, it's a nice sized town, not huge like Seattle but 
there's stuff to do, public transportation and paratransit.  And 
sidewalks! Lol.

When we first moved there, we had a Lab pet.  Jake was awesome.  
I will never know how he knew to do some of the things he did.  I 
was afraid of the cows, even though they were on the other side 
of the fence.  Jake would walk next to Cleo who was guiding me, 
but he would always put himself between me and the cows.  And one 
winter day, we had very steep steps.  I was afraid to go down 
them because they were very icy.  I did not say a word to Jake.  
I was thinking about how nice it would be if Jake would come up 
and be on my other side.  But I did not audibly call to him.  He 
came up on my right side, allowed me to hang on to his fur, and 
walked down the steep icy steps with me.  When we got to the 
bottom, off he ran, tail wagging.  How in the world he knew to do 
that, and to keep between me and the cows I'll never know.  The 
how he knew to come up and let me hang on to his fur to walk down 
those steps is beyond me.  I really wonder if dogs sometimes can 
have some kind of ESP or "sixth sense" or something? I know not 
every dog has it, but Jake sure had something.    Debby and Nova