Marilyn Smith

It’s no more than four steps from the mountain cabin’s dining room table to the kitchen sink, but I don’t even have time to pick up my empty dinner plate when I’ve set down my fork after the last bite. Radler knows empty-plate sounds. To him, that’s the gong for the evening fitness routine.

Some time a year or so ago, when I was home for a long weekend or a week’s vacation, I inadvertently trained Radler to expect play after dinner. It must have been summer when the days were longer and he could still see his black rubber toy we call Biter. By now, though, it doesn’t matter if it’s dark or light, wet or dry, hot or cold outside. Dinner’s over? Let’s play.

He sits by the patio door, looking at me expectantly and demandingly at the same time, every muscle tensed to spring into the yard. I sit at the table and groan. I’m tired. I want to sit on the couch while I digest, watching The NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. I want to read the paper, thumb through the latest New Yorker, anything but go outside in the cold, wet, dark and throw a foot-long hunk of rubber with an icky wet throw strap.

I hear a whimper. I cave. “You want to play?” Ears go up. Legs stretch a little longer. Eyes open wide. “Where’s Biter?” I open the door and Rad explodes across the patio and into the gloom. He surfaces moments later with Biter firmly clamped in his jaws, zooming back and forth the length of our lot three or four times before dropping Biter on the patio at my feet and heading east to the catcher’s mound.

I promise to throw Biter three times. I grab my leather gardening glove to stay warm and keep clear of whatever disgusting moisture has soaked into the throw strap. I grab it, throw it and, more often than not, Rad grabs Biter on its way down.

He’s got some great moves, that dog. The best is the Flying 360, when he leaps into the air to catch Biter and does a full twist before landing. He runs back to me every time with a smile on either side of the toy. He drops it in the approved zone — the patio — most of the time. He’ll get too excited now and then and drop it on the lawn. As he rushes back to position, I tell him, “I can’t get it there.” He turns around immediately, circles back, and drops Biter on the patio, or darned close. So I throw it again.

It’s easy to get caught up in the game and forget that I wanted to stop after three throws. When I see Rad having such a good time, I start to enjoy it, too. Who wouldn’t want to make a dog happy?

It’s raining hard this afternoon. Rad’s prone on the mat by the patio door, staring at the mud and the moss and the generally depressing mess of our suburban yard in mid-winter. He could use some cheering up.

Gotta go.

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