Adventure at the Wiener Crossing

The miniature dachshund was so small, it took a second for my brain to register that this was a dog. It jumped off the curb into a busy four-lane highway directly in the path of my car.

Luckily I had just enough time to be able to signal the car behind me and brake. I immediately regretted honking to scare it back onto the curb when it started and looked like it might dart into the lane next to me.

“NOOOOO!”

Fortunately that smart little dog listened. It wavered, looked worried, stopped guiltily, clearly wondering what it had done wrong. It had presumably been enjoying an unexpected adventure until I’d started making horrible noises at it. I waved an apology to the man behind me and dove out of my car. The man behind me signaled back, “Yes. Get the dog.” With a kind smile.

That was when I realized the thoughtful driver next to me had stopped as well, immobilizing the southbound lanes of rush hour traffic in order to help protect the little dog. The young man got out to help. “Whatdya do?” he asked me.

I didn’t know. If I’d been heading toward home, I would have put it in my car and checked for tags. Driven around. Asked people. But I had somewhere to go. Fortunately the little wiener dog finally understood that the direction it was heading was upsetting a whole lot of humans. It wheeled around and bounded for home in that determined, ear-trailing, stubby-legged gallop that only a dachshund can achieve. That was when I looked behind me and realized it had a partner in crime—a little brown dog several cars back attended by a group of women who were making sure it didn’t continue its little doggy-holiday alone.

It wasn’t until I turned back to my car that I was able to appreciate the rows and rows of traffic as far as I could see that had come to a halt for two little dogs on a spoiled adventure. All of the nearby drivers were out of their cars and actively engaged in a joint dog-herding venture. Not a single one was looking upset about anything but the fate of those pets.

We hear about people who are cruel to animals. I thought I would pass along what was for me a pleasant reminder that most are not. It took a whole lot of strangers gathered on the highway, united over their shared love of another species, to send me a nice message I needed: My own species has its moments as well.

What a paradox that we connect with God, with divinity, with our flesh and blood and time and space. We connect with God in our humanity. ~Anne Lamott, Stitches