In which I owe my dog an apology

Originally posted at Street Prophets Here are my buddies, Stevie (cat) and Brady (collie) sacked out just a couple feet from my desk. I wrote about Brady and our trips to the dog park a little over a month ago. I haven't been able to take him there as often as I'd like, but when we do go, he always enjoys himself. Today was the first day in a while that I've thought the weather was nice enough to head out with him, and he was *more* than ready. And, of course seeing him that happy and excited is very satisfying for me. He's such a sweet boy, albeit a bit clueless. At least, that's how he seemed to me when he was running with the other dogs. I remarked once that Brady is "not the sharpest knife in the drawer", to which my husband responded, "I think he might be a spoon!" Today at the dog park, I realized that maybe *I* had been the clueless one. As we pulled into the parking lot near our local "Bark Park", I could tell that Brady was overjoyed to be there. He trotted energetically at my side as we walked up the pathway leading to the park. Once we were inside and he was off leash, he got down to business--leaning on all the receptive humans and greeting all the dogs. And then, invariably, one of the humans throws a ball, other dogs chase the ball, and Brady happily runs alongside them. That's the part that always seemed clueless to me. Like Brady was saying, "I don't know what were doing, but we're having fun!" This time, while Brady was doing his running adjacent to the action routine,