Today’s run was like something out of an action movie where we were being chased by a shadowy government agency and got into exciting adventures in a foreign land. Mom and I left the house and went to My Trail as we usually do, but we passed every spot that we would usually turn around. Instead, we kept running to a part of the trail far outside my jurisdiction, where I had never been before. Even more exciting, we started out by running sprints, and then alternated 1 min fast and 1 min slow as we explored this new territory.
Everything was going great, until a truck came up behind us. That scared the crap out of me, because there aren’t supposed to be cars on My Trail, but who knows what the laws were in this strange land. Mom pulled me off the trail into the weeds so that the truck could pass, but when it came up to us, it stopped and a human leaned out. “Dogs can’t be here,” he said. “You’re going to have to go back that way.” Then he pointed back toward home. “I can’t go that way,” Mom said. “My car’s parked the other way.” Wait… I thought. Why isn’t Mom’s car at home? “Well, the fine for having a dog in this part of the trail is $20,000. On other sections it’s only $50, but this is a protected wildlife habitat.” “$20,000 isn’t that much money, right? I think that’s like a medium sized bag of treats, right Mom?” I asked. Mom looked dumbfounded. “Anyway, he said it was fine…” “He said it was a fine, Oscar. A penalty. If we have to pay $20,000 you’ll be eating dollar store dog food for the rest of your life!” Then she turned to the truck-man. “I’m sorry, but how else can we get out of here? It’s a mile to get out if we go forward, and it’s a mile if we turn back, so I’ll get us out as fast as I can. I promise.” So I was a dangerous fugitive, huh? I liked the sound of “running out of here as fast as we can.” We should go to wildlife preserves all the time! Once we were back to safety, Mom slowed down, but we still never turned around. We ran further and further into this foreign country, until we were running through neighborhoods I had never seen before. I was getting kind of tired, and I didn’t know how we were going to get home… SQUIRREL! That’s right, this foreign country had squirrels too, and I chased one around and up a tree. I took Mom so off guard, that she would have slammed face first into the tree at full speed if she hadn’t put her hands out in front of her like Frankenstein and used them as a bumper. And then, a block later, she brought me into her office! What a surprise!
I guess she needed to put me to work to save up money in case we got a $20,000 fine, because she tied me to a desk, and that’s where I’ve been all day. My friends are here, including my running buddy Caitlin. But it turns out that Mom doesn’t do what I thought she did all day. I thought she left me and went to the trails or the dog park all day without me, but it turns out that she just comes here and someone ties HER to a desk and she just stares at a white wall and taps on the table with her fingers over and over for hours. How very boring.
–Oscar Borne, the business dog
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