Sep 30, 2022 4 min read

Wrenched my back this week. It was all Smoothie’s fault, but Elvis was complicit.

Smoothie the sheltie and I took our after-dinner walk down the block to the dog park, and Elvis was there. He’s the Bernedoodle (part Bernese mountain dog, part poodle) who lives at the other end of the grassy area.

Smoothie and Elvis had met and sniffed each other a few times since we moved here, and that’s how I got to meet Nancy, the human at the other end of Elvis’ leash. This time, Elvis was out with Nancy’s husband, and I asked him if we could come closer so the dogs could visit.

Almost immediately, things went south. Smoothie approached, the dogs touched noses, and then Smoothie decided to dart around the back of my legs. It was so unlike him to be so impulsive, but ’round he went; when he ran back toward Elvis, he twirled his leash around my ankles.

OK, so now Elvis was inspired to do what Smoothie just did, and he did a loop around my ankles, too, thus tying the two leashes in what’s known in sailing as a sheepshank knot – I looked it up. Not caring that they’d lassoed me into a real pickle, the dogs went about nuzzling each other while I tried to unravel.

I twirled myself in the opposite direction, but that made things worse. Meanwhile, Nancy’s husband was pulling at the leash to remove Elvis from the tangle, but that only tightened things more. We were no more than 30 seconds into this visit, and I was spinning around like Dorothy Hamill, trying to free myself.

Just then, Smoothie felt the urge and started to squat.

“Now is not the right time, Smoothie – not a good time,” I shouted, sure that if he followed through and did what he intended to do, things would really get messy because the leash was entirely around my ankles and Smoothie was pretty much trapped on my shoes.

By now, we two humans were doing a frantic hokey-pokey, grabbing and pulling and winding, trying to unspool from each other. (I think in Hollywood they call this “conscious uncoupling.”) Somehow, Smoothie had managed to thread his leash through the hook on Elvis’s collar.

It’s one of the mysteries of physics. For example, you can put your wired headsets away neatly wrapped around the iPod, and when you go to use them the next time, the wires have gone all knotty. How does that happen? And more to the point, how do I free myself from this plate of spaghetti I’d found myself in?

The game of Twister came to mind, and also those Jacob’s Ladder string games we’d play on our hands. Dickens’ Madame Defarge’s knitting was less complicated.

“Stop it, Smoothie,” I said, over and over, and to the guy at the other end of the tangle, “I”m so sorry.”

Smoothie has never taken well to scolding, and he tried to run away. My little dog yanked the leash and started to tip me over. I caught myself from falling with a jarring stomp on my right foot. I worried that I’d feel that the next morning.

And I did.

As I hobbled out of bed, Smoothie was standing there, looking at me.

“You know what you did,” I said, and he dropped his head in shame. “No more Elvis visits for you.”

I didn’t really mean it, though. We like Elvis and his humans. We haven’t seen them since then, but every time we go for our walk, Smoothie has his head up, sniffing the air, hoping to see his friend.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.