I’d thought about not going because the wind is blowing hard from the northwest. Add to that, it’s cold and beginning to snow. All good reasons to skip my new year’s resolution to walk every day.

Then I heard a familiar thump, and the mail carrier set off my Ring doorbell.

When I opened the door I recognized the shape of the package right away. My new walking cane had arrived.

Some of you are probably aware that my friend Spanky was injured last month, and I had to make the difficult decision to let him go. For reasons I still don’t understand myself, I felt compelled to have him cremated.

I picked him up the second day of this month. It was a small box. When I made it home I set it beside my bed and looked at it for a while. Then I mustered enough courage to look inside and found yet another box. It was a black plastic cube. Nondescript. Plain.

The more I thought about what I would do with him the more I thought that pouring out his ashes on my plot in Oak Grove Cemetery wasn’t what I really wanted to do.

One of my daughters suggested that I purchase a nice urn for Spanky. We FaceTimed together and discovered all types of urns for dogs. There were traditional ones that looked like vases. Some had paw prints on them. There were little wooden boxes. Some looked like miniature fire plugs. Cute, but none met my expectations.

Then it hit me. Why not a hollow walking cane? I went online and found several nice ones. Finally I settled on a black beech cane that had a long glass flask and a couple tumblers inside. Perfect. It arrived today and that’s what made the thump on my porch.

Spanky is inside my walking cane now.

We went on our first walk in nearly a month just a little while ago. It felt good to have him with me again. I didn’t stop as much along the way as I used to, and I didn’t have to worry about the mutt down the street running out and trying to bite me like he normally does. Had he dared I would have bopped him on the head with my cane, and I’m sure Spanky would have approved.

We made it home and now he’s resting beside my desk while I work on another project.

It’s good to have him nearby again.

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Rick Algood
January 15, 2021