Story Time with Murphy

Some context: I walk dogs professionally now.

This is one of the best decisions I've ever made and also, obviously, perfectly timed — I built a whole job around being outdoors the same month the sky filled with smoke.

And now, a word from our sponsors (1 click puts $ in my pocket!)

Unlimited everything. No contract. Just $25/mo. With Tello, you get reliable 5G coverage, zero hidden fees, and none of the bundles you never wanted.

Build Your Own Tello Plan

Anyway. Yesterday I decided to be generous.

The air had eased up. I had a little extra time. And I had a dachshund, let’s call him Murphy, who is roughly the length of a loaf of bread and has the internal authority of a small-town mayor.

So I thought: let's do the long route. Let's go past the usual turn. Let's let Murphy have smells. New smells. Smells he has not previously catalogued. I was extremely pleased with myself. I was, in my own mind, an excellent dog walker having an excellent idea.

We got maybe a third of the way.

And then he stopped.

Not a sniff-stop. Not a something-interesting-over-there stop. He about-faced and proceeded to drag me home. No asking if we could go that way, just walked that way until I followed him home.

I quirked my head, figuring he was setting a boundary and set off behind him.

There was no detouring, barely any sniffing - this man was on a mission to get home and take a nap.

I chose to let him lead instead of arguing. Partly because I'd like to think I'm the sort of person who listens when someone tells me plainly what they need.

Mostly because you cannot out-argue a dachshund. They are built low and long specifically so that their center of gravity can win debates. It's a physics problem, and you are not going to solve it on the sidewalk in front of a stranger's rhododendron.

So we went home. He was pleased. He trotted the whole way back with the brisk satisfaction of someone whose day had gone exactly as they intended.

And I've been thinking about it ever since, because — friends. Friends.

I would have finished that walk.

On my own, I would have finished that walk. I was tired at the one-third mark — and I'd have kept going anyway, because I'd already decided on the long route, and somewhere along the line I forgot that I'm allowed to opt out of a plan I made half an hour ago... with an AQI of 33.

I would have finished a walk I no longer wanted, feeling strange, to meet a goal nobody set but me.

He got a third of the way in, checked, found the answer, and acted on it. Immediately. Without one second of negotiation. Without apologizing to me. Without deciding what it meant about him as a dog.

He didn't push through. He didn't power on. He didn't tell himself the rest of the walk technically counted.

He just went: nope, got what I needed, home now.

And here's the part I can't quite get over. I was so sure I knew what he needed. More smells! More stimulation! More world!

He needed to go home.

I was offering him novelty. He was after something else entirely.

I figured I'd never know which. Short legs, maybe. Bored of me, maybe. A sufficient quantity of Tuesday. You get the signal, not the reason — that's usually how this goes.

Except this time I got the reason.

Here are the numbers.

When I parked at his house, the AQI was 33. Green. Fine. The kind of number that doesn't even register.

I drove home afterward and checked it, because I was feeling weird — foggy, faintly wrong, having symptoms. 57.

By tonight it was 128.

He turned us around while it was climbing. Before my app said anything worth saying, and well before I thought to look.

I didn't check the air because I noticed the air. I checked because my body finally got loud enough to make me look — and by then I was in the car, symptomy after errands I had talked myself intoafter a dog had already said no thank you to a long walk.

He was about an hour ahead of me.

And here's the part that actually got me: he didn't talk himself into it.

He didn't wonder whether it was bad enough yet. He didn't check a number for permission. He didn't finish the walk because we'd come all that way. He realised he wasn’t enjoying the walk and dragged me home.

I would have talked myself into it. I would have talked myself into every single step of the rest of that walk.

Check in at the one-third mark. Ask what you actually need instead of what you planned to need. And when the answer comes back home now — go home. Without the negotiation. Without the little internal court case about whether you've earned it.

You don't have to finish the walk just because you started it.

You don't have to be tired enough, or sick enough, or wait for a number to reach some threshold that gives you permission. Your body knows what's up before we get the data.

That's not woo. That's just what bodies are for. Ours are as good at it as his — we've simply been trained to wait for external confirmation, and to feel a bit silly if we act before it arrives.

Your body is allowed to plant its feet and turn around, and the correct response is to follow it. It is right, and you are not going to win this one anyway.

A prompt, if you'd like one:

Where in my life am I finishing a walk I no longer want to be on — and what would turning around actually cost me?

Be well, friends. Listen to your inner dachshund.

✨ ❄ 🌲 Audrey 🌲 ❄ ✨

P.S. — Everything here stays free. Members are simply what makes it sustainable, so join only if it's a clear yes. As always: skip freely, linger where something sparks. 🌿

PPS: Want to share your thoughts? Just reply to this email! People have been asking about a forum—I'm researching options and will share more soon. Thank you for reading this far. I love you 🫶