It’s only phreakin physics! A dog's tale.

I wish I had been videoed this morning. Let me explain.

Four Dogs? 

These days I walk four dogs in the morning. Two my wife’s and mine and two we’re babysitting for our sons. One of my sons said I look like a character in some cheesy romantic comedy when I set out with that many dogs. But how can I say no and leave any at home!

They look cute and kind of innocent right at first. Oscar is the scruffiest looking and is a cairn terrier / schnauzer mix. Rocky, the smaller brindle colored one is a rescued cairn terrier. The lighter colored dog is our son’s and her name is Loca and she could be something like a Basenji / Shiba Inu mix based on web images I’ve seen. The biggest guy is a Treeing Walker Coonhound. Yes that’s exactly his breed! And he’s another rescued dog that goes with one of our other sons.

Like flying kites on the ground 

Once we start the walk though, it’s like flying four kites on the ground. You never quite know which direction each one is going to take. And this morning they threw me for a loop. Literally!

Thrown for loop! 

I had just finished a poop harvest into a cute biodegradable purple bag with little doggies printed on it. This in itself is a challenge since I can’t let go of the coonhound’s leash to easily tie up the bag. He’s only ~2 years old and will still chase things. Well, I got the bag all tied up, turned around to the right direction and off we went at a brisk pace.

The hound dog decided to do an abrupt about-face, though, and caught me full stride below the knees and I was hurled into a half flip in the air and landed hard on my right back shoulder. All this happened a respectable two feet or so above the ground and I fortunately landed in a neighbor’s comfortably soft lawn. I sat up thinking “What the phreak just happened!?” and laughed when I saw the tangle of dogs. They looked like they were thinking the same thing.

Oh, and did I mention that I was about 30 feet from a four-way stop and an SUV driver saw the whole thing … and stayed embarrassingly still until I got up. I sat and laughed for a few moments, got up, and waved to the driver. Of course, they drove by very slowly. With dogs and leashes finally untangled, off we went again.

It's only phreakin physics! 

As the adrenalin worked its way out of my system, my emotions started to get a little cranky at the universe (Yes I can play the victim pretty well when I choose!). I caught them just in time and switched to a mental reenactment. I pictured lines of rotation and applied force and was reminded that it was only phreakin physics at play, the apparently random convergence of movements of lines and masses and momentum and probabilities at planes of rotational axes. I laughed again.

I have to constantly remind myself of the random nature of events and not take it too personally!

Like I said, I wish I had a video recording because I imagine the physics were those of an elite athlete’s biophysics when spectacularly tackled or checked or blocked. The closest I can offer to capture my feeling is Bass Drops’ video, Football Flip Tackle Bass Drop, published on Oct 17, 2013. This is a video of a guy getting "tackled". Technically speaking he gets flipped. The song is Animals by Martin Garrix.

The thing about the phreaking physics is that they don’t capture the pheelings. Based on the pheelings I know my half flip in the suburbs was just as spectacular!