[Tango-L] For Dog Lover's Only

[Lois Donnay]

I like this, and hope that Ed will allow me to repeat it to students.
It's true - both the follower and the leader only want to please each
other. It's figuring out how to do that that confounds so many.

Lois Donnay
Minneapolis, MN 

If you don't love dogs, don't bother to read this as you will surely
conclude I am crazy (and you will most probably be correct).

Anyway, today I was walking my dog and dreaming of dancing tango.  I
started
to notice things I had not noticed before.  My dog typically walks about
eight feet in front of me, our connection being the eight foot leather
leash
(maybe this could loosely be called an open connection :-}} ).  Although
she
has her eyes open, she generally looks forward and can not see me
(unless
she turns her head around deliberately to look).  Although she is eight
feet
in front of me, clearly I am leading and she is following. I determine
where
we walk, I am not following her. She has learned through miles of
walking to
keep a constant '2 pound' tension on our connection, the leash. If I
walk
faster or slower, she will adjust her walk to maintain the same 'feel'
in
the connection. She is not leading, and if I turn and walk another
direction, she will adjust, and get back in front of me in the new
direction.  She does not allow the tension to increase as that would
engage
the choke collar and be uncomfortable for her, or pull me off my
balance.
She does not let the tension decrease as the leash would go slack and
she
might trip on it (or maybe I would fall over it, although I doubt that
is
her motivation for keeping the slack out of the connection), or at least
walking would be less natural for her.  We both have some desire to make
the
walk pleasant for each other. If she tugged and pulled, I might not want
to
walk her as often or perhaps might make her heel which is a different
kind
of walking - maybe not as pleasant as our free walks.  If I did not give
her
time to sniff and do her own thing (her adornments) at times (but within
the
bounds of our connection) she would probably become less interested in
going
for a walk with me.

Well, there is no purpose to this posting, except to share my musings
with
anyone who might find them amusing.

Ed
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