HAO and I have not been our traditional walk together in months. Today was possibly the first time we've been there in late summer, when she is usually still home. So Saturday we walked. I didn't see the possible golden eagles or any other fauna, but the flora was thick and luscious. Relative to itself, anyway. Not relative to Washington rainforest. Funny how your perceptions change.

We stopped in Alfalfa's for juice afterward. This store was having its 15th birthday and shoppers walked about with plates of cake, which we sought. "It's only yellow," I griped. "But yellow's great!" said HAO. Is yellow a flavor, like red? But it wasn't plain yellow (this being Alfalfa's), it was lemon mousse--subtle and tasty.

Then she took me to the SPCA where she's been volunteering for months. "Would it depress you to see all the dogs, should I just bring you out one?" No, I could go in. They were mostly quiet and the kennels didn't reek, which are my two most vulnerable points.

Cinderblock divided the cement floor into 2'x6' pens; chainlink gates separated the pens from the long center hallway. At the back of each pen, a small aperture connected it with the next pen and under the wall at that point was a drain. The floors were clean, the bowls full, the dogs paired. They came, two by two, came politely to the gates. They didn't whine, so my heart didn't break. There were no full labs, so again I was safe. I wanted a medium dog, wondering how well-trained any of these stray or abandoned animals might be trained, whether "heel" was just more blah-blah-Ginger to them.

There was a black and white dog with ears out of all proportion to his body named Lop, but he couldn't go outside yet. I am not enough of a philanthropist--philacanine?--to enjoy or even sympathize with dust mops, so I barely glanced in one pen with four of those.

Then I saw Duckie. All black, part lab, part whippet or similar breed, very alert, just over my knee. HAO took Duckie's roommate, who had no name. She was clearly part Australian cattle dog, a breed I never knew could be so timid. Her nipples were swollen, so perhaps she was a mistreated breeder. No name, no history, and as soon as we got outside she measured her belly in the dirt. At the end of the walk, her ears had come forward a little, but her tail never came out from between her legs.

Not so Duckie. I said the dogs were quiet, but this was true only until they saw another dog prance by, ears up, tail wagging, inquisitive eyes everywhere, declaring "I get to go for a walk! Or maybe a drive in a car! Maybe they'll take me home with them!" She seemed happy with just a walk, though, and did her best to encourage the tan bitch to playfulness and sniffiness.

I need to do this more often. I need to volunteer in some capacity and any contact with dogs is good for me.