It’s better than biting into dark chocolate-almond-sea salt bark

The salt water, the sand, the cloudy sky

On a Saturday morning

The sun pokes through, what a spark

No other people nearby

I watch the pelicans fly

They hover over the water

Those salty waves

I run through the dunes

Is that pompass grass or a Golden retriever’s tail

That wispy brush bobs in the breeze

This place never fails to make me happy

There he is diving off the dunes, my pup up ahead

We’ve been here for hours

It’s almost noon

He runs so hard, so far

Then he stops, I assume to smell something dead

He looks back at me

He takes off sprinting again

Never mind that we’re against the wind

The air smells like salt

But so much more to my pup

I’m nervous to see him keep running

This time away from the shore – and up

Onto those boardwalk stairs

I fear the boulevard a little ways away

He’s headed there

My heart hammers

I can’t run any faster after him

But then I stop

He looks back at me from the boardwalk

I yell – “Billy!!!”

And do a 180

I run hard on the sand, the opposite way

I throw my arms in the air and pray

All that training, all that love

I glance back as I run, 400 meters away

Billy is looking my way

He flies off the stairs

He pursues me down the beach

Full speed

I keep running

Finally, he catches me

I bend down to hug him and we do a dance

I’m glad I didn’t lose the pup to happenstance

I could finally smell the bacon and steak from up on the strip

I hooked him up to his leash

All I had to offer him was this:

A 10-pound gray trout long-deceased

Billy leaned into him with his sandy snout

The poor fish had washed up

The rotten carcass, the horrid smell delighted my pup

I praised Billy and gave him his reward for coming when called

He flopped down in the sand and rolled about

Turns out he loved me most after all

We trekked back with our sandy toes

Our salty hair

I cooked him a steak for dinner

For dessert I had my dark chocolate-almond-sea salt bark

After that run, I felt like a winner

With my pup

We celebrated, holding each other’s hearts