Slow Walking

Charlie and I, it seems, have different ideas on what constitutes a good dog walk. For my part, I want it to be long enough to burn off excess canine energy that otherwise might will be directed toward me (and probably involve teeth), slightly brisk, and far enough away to see new neighborhoods and experience new things.
Charlie, however, completely disagrees. In his mind, the purpose of a walk is to check pee-mail, score love, and, who knows, maybe find some dropped food. One should not go past anything scary, like the schoolyard, or the house with the whirlygigs, anywhere there are workmen, or anyplace new. So his preference is to just go around the block. Slow. Real slow. Sniffingly slow.

So we compromise. I make him go farther than he wants to, because he needs to be desensitized to the idea that new = scary. But we go slow, and we smell the flowers.