The Most Effective Pet Ever before: Wally's Joyful Journeys with Ellen Waltzman

Wally never walked so much as he sailed. He floated a half inch above the ground with that bright, unhurried confidence only a dog with a steady home and a steady person can carry. I met him on a gray March afternoon when the lake wind was trying to rearrange the neighborhood. He put his paw on my knee before I had the chance to crouch, then leaned his whole chest into me like we were already on chapter five of a friendship. From that moment, I started measuring my days by Wally’s small rituals. When people ask why I call him The Best Dog Ever, I tell them the truth that matters to me most: he made ordinary time feel important.

The first hello, the last first

I had been visiting the shelter on and off for a few weeks, telling myself I was only looking. The staff knew I was lying but indulged the act. Wally wasn’t the obvious choice, not if you were counting Instagram metrics. He had a spatter of white across his chest and a coat that looked like someone painted him brown and then wiped half of it off with a towel. He wasn’t a puppy, he wasn’t a rare anything, and nobody had given him a jaunty bandanna for his intake photo. Still, the moment I saw his file name, Wally, it felt like the start of a story.

He came home with me in a borrowed crate that rattled when we hit potholes. I whispered to him at each stoplight, promising there were better potholes in his future. I had prewashed a blanket because, if you know, you know, that strange mix of shelter soap and fear takes a few cycles to loosen. He stepped into the apartment, paused, and made a beeline for the only sunny square on the kitchen floor, then draped himself across it like warm laundry. It took twenty minutes for him to convince himself the water bowl wasn’t a trap. It took an hour for him to learn the sound of me opening the cheese drawer.

The first week had the usual new-dog jitter. He barked once at the refrigerator at 1:40 a.m., then settled, as if he just needed to tell it he was the captain now. He collected a shortlist of preferred sleeping positions, top among them the frog leg sprawl, back paws out like fins, chin flat on the rug. We began to build a rhythm I could feel in my calves and my chest. The good kind of routine, not the kind that erodes you.

Wally’s sense of comedy

Some dogs have timing. Wally had timing and an editor. He never milked a bit past its best laugh. He figured out early that if he did a small sneeze whenever I reached for my keys, I would talk to him a little longer. He calibrated it to land in the split second between keys and door, a perfect comic beat. He learned that if he sat slightly crooked, people on the sidewalk would stop to fix his posture with both hands, which meant Ellen Waltzman Davidson more ear scritches. He perfected the “pre-yawn sigh,” a sound that could close a meeting faster than a calendar alert.

One evening, I tried to practice yoga in the living room. Wally watched through the warm intelligence of a friend who knows you are faking your flexibility. During downward dog, he walked underneath my teepee shape and parked himself, which cut my indignity in half. Then he placed a single paw on my yoga mat, slid it two inches, and looked at me like a director adjusting a light. The pose was better. I can’t prove it, but Wally understood stagecraft.

He also appreciated slapstick. I dropped a bag of carrots once, and they scattered like hot popcorn. Wally carefully collected each one, trotted them to his bed, and lined them up. He did not eat them. He just enjoyed the order of it. Two hours later, he returned, selected one, and crunched exactly half. A poem in orange.

Times With Wally at the Dog Park near the Lake

If I had to draw a map of our friendship, the dog park by the lake would be the legend. In spring the ground turned to pudding and every dog wore their own private constellation of mud. In August the breeze cleared the heat so thoroughly that conversations took twice as long because no one wanted to be the first to go home. The regulars had their routines and stools. Wally was a diplomat, quick to read the room, never the first to bark and never the last to forgive.

Our favorite bench sat under a cottonwood that shed a gentle, papery snow in June. It was close enough to the fence that Wally could lean his front paws and survey the path as if checking arrivals at a small airport. He had a circle of park friends, some with names and some known only by their stride. Tall Hank, who ran in big U shapes and never stopped to drink. Zephyr, a husky who pretended to be aloof until it was time to sprint. Esther, an elderly mutt who arrived in a wagon and left with her tongue earned-out.

There is a particular sound I miss: Wally’s paws thumping across the footbridge between the small and big dog areas, the hollow echo that made him seem heavier than he was. He would sprint it each time like it was a musical instrument only he could play. If he saw a new dog lingering at the entrance, he slowed, looped around, and presented a sideways stance, tail at mid-height, the canine equivalent of a light handshake. Watching him, I learned how to welcome without fuss.

On the lake’s edge, there’s a narrow strip where the grass surrenders to stones. Wally adored the stones. He crowned them with his chin and hummed. He did not swim. He considered swimming the blessed privilege of ducks. He preferred to step almost-in, then back out, then check my face, making sure I had seen his bravery. Whenever a wavelet reached his toes, he lifted a paw and answered with a small hop, as if we were engaged in a polite dance with the shoreline. Those afternoons tallied in my memory as Fun Days With Wally, which became our umbrella phrase for any simple joy that went exactly right.

The power of routine and the permission to break it

There is a line between habit and ritual. Habit is brushing your teeth; ritual is the half-turn you make toward a window as you rinse, because that is where the light enters. With dogs, you get a thousand tiny rituals, most of them free and many of them invisible until they vanish. We had the 7:12 a.m. stretch with groan, the wait at the elevator where Wally tried to beat the arrival by predicting the ding, and the fresh towel flung across his back after the rain, which he wore like a superhero cape until he shook it off and grinned.

Still, there is value in breaking your own map. On a Tuesday that felt like a Monday, we took the long route east instead of south. The bakery there puts yesterday’s baguette ends in a basket by the door for anyone who wants croutons. I asked for the smallest heel. Wally carried it home without chewing, which required Olympic-level self-control. He set it down on his bed, sat before it like a monk before a candle, and looked at me. Permission granted. He ate it in four measured bites, pausing between each as if to say, this is the good part, we should notice it.

I learned to break patterns when his energy ran high but the park felt crowded or the weather had sharpened everyone’s edges. We explored alleys with mysterious murals, paused under a fire escape that clacked as the building settled, invented a game where we traded a pebble back and forth across a line in the sidewalk. Dogs do not require grand gestures. They require attendance. That was Wally’s gift to me, the habit of paying attention to small differences and the ritual of naming them.

What Wally taught me about people

Wally treated visitors like a concierge with a cutoff time. If you arrived within the first twenty minutes, you were eligible for the full tour. He would show you the couch, the spot where the sunlight warmed the hardwood, the location of the window that framed the oak tree where the squirrel committee held morning hearings. If you arrived late, you were required to check in quietly and submit to a nose scan, then be seated. Wally did not negotiate this policy.

In those early months, he startled at a few sudden sounds. A dropped metal bowl, a skateboard rolling fast, even my phone buzzing in a ceramic dish made his eyebrows jump. The cure wasn’t treats alone. It was context. I narrated the world to him without baby talk. That bang was a pot lid. That rumble is the bus on the next block. He settled, and I learned something important: people respond to calm fact, not force. Say the thing as it is, and the air lightens.

He also reminded me that every greeting has a story behind it. A man once cut across the park with a posture like a question mark. Wally approached, slow, employed the sideways stance, and waited. The man lowered a hand. It shook a little. He scratched Wally’s chest with two fingers, then said, unexpectedly, we had a beagle when I was ten. He didn’t stay long. I have seen this exact confession five, maybe ten times. Dogs open a trapdoor in the floor of memory. Wally knew how to lift it gently.

Food, medicine, and the art of the acceptable compromise

Feed a dog, and you take on fifteen small decisions. Kibble or raw, bone or chew, fish oil now or later, carrots yes but grapes no, and how to keep the pills from becoming a battle. With Wally we found a good middle road. I chose a kibble that didn’t read like a chemistry set and added wet food so he got the thrill of variety. The timing was fixed: breakfast after the first walk, dinner before the sunset lap. He thrived on predictability, yet he appreciated menu drama in the form of two green beans.

He had an allergy season that showed up one year like a late bill. His paws turned pink, his scratching spiked, and he looked at me like, respectfully, I am itchy. We tried the simplest interventions first, cooled rinses after the park, a wipe-down at the door, a short course of antihistamines cleared with our vet. Better. Then not better. We did the whole vet arc, including a gentle lecture about patience and the immune system’s flair for theater. He eventually leveled out with a mix of diet tweaks and a topical rinse every other day in the worst weeks.

The pill trick, for those who will ask, worked only when I respected his intelligence. Peanut butter fooled him for a week. Cheese worked longer, but the day he bit down on a half tablet and made the face, I knew I had to change strategies. I started the medicine after we played fetch in the hallway, right when dopamine and breath did their best work. Quick swallow, a single verbal ritual, then an immediate walk to the elevator. He reconnected the sequence and stopped cataloging my sneaky hands. It wasn’t about the treat. It was about the moment after the treat.

Weather as a character in our days

Winter brought the kind of cold that squeezes your eyelashes. Wally handled it with the stoicism of someone who believes snow is a respectable idea as long as it minds its manners. Ellen Waltzman He accepted a jacket the way a practical person accepts a scarf, no drama, just the small shuffle dance as his paws lifted to fit through the leg holes. On the worst mornings, he looked at me from his bed, then at the door, then back at me, and I told him we would keep it efficient. He’s the only creature who could make a ten-minute walk feel like a complete story.

Spring was his season. The first thaw turned the dog park into a site for archaeological digs, and Wally took that role seriously. He located tennis balls that predates his arrival and carried them to the communal pile like a good citizen. His tail moved at quarter speed, the satisfied metronome of a workman finishing a job. On the path by the lake, the weeping willows would green at the tips, and he would stop under them like a patron in a gallery, head tilted, studying the brushwork.

Summer was for shade math. We planned routes like smugglers of cool air, hugging building lines and slipping through the deepest pockets of tree cover. At home I froze broth into low, wide cakes and slid them from silicone molds so he could lick a small lake in the kitchen. Heat makes everyone testy, but Wally had the blessed ability to nap it off and wake cheerful. He never held the weather against the world.

In fall we hunted leaves. Not piles, which he considered too obvious, but the single heroic maple leaf that had escaped its cohort and skated across the sidewalk alone. He would match pace with it as it sailed, then pounce, not to shred, just to hold. We kept a few on the fridge, magnets turned into temporary trophies, crisping at the edges, a bit of the park under a light in the kitchen.

The games only we understood

Every friendship accumulates a private lexicon. Ours had “museum walk,” which meant slow lap with pauses to read the neighborhood like text. It had “check the traps,” which meant visit the three corners where the wind sometimes collected interesting findings. It had “the scritch of record,” which signaled the end of a grooming session when he cooperated, a deep rub that stretched from shoulders to hips. He kept score, and I tried to earn more wins than losses.

We invented a two-beat fetch for rainy days. The hallway ran just long enough for a tennis ball to carry and bounce back halfway. He learned to anticipate the rebound, thus halving the run and doubling the satisfaction. I kept a mental tally of throws to make sure I stopped while he still wanted one more. Quit on the high note. That single rule kept Fun Days With Wally from turning into training drills.

Our very best game came out of nothing. I tapped my fingers on the coffee table in a simple pattern, then paused. He thumped his tail in answer, once. I tapped again, adding a beat. He answered twice. We did this for maybe three minutes, just a rhythm shared across species. He wasn’t solving a puzzle. He was saying yes, I hear you, I can do this with you. People talk about dog intelligence like a contest. I prefer to measure attunement, the quickness to notice and join. Wally excelled at that.

Health scares, hard days, and how we held steady

No long love stays on a perfect arc. Wally had a limp that arrived subtly, a shift in his step that only those of us who count footsteps for sport might notice. I watched for a day, then another, then made the appointment we always hope never to need. The vet palpated, rotated, frowned the professional frown that says I am collecting information, not delivering doom. Soft tissue, likely, not ligament, rest and anti-inflammatory, check back in a week.

Wally believed that rest is for other dogs. We negotiated. I folded up the couch cushions to create a gentle incline so he couldn’t take flying leaps. I replaced the long park romps with three short museum walks. He mastered the art of single-stair patience, waiting for my cue to step down, then pausing again. He healed. We added strength work disguised as play, standing on a cushion for balance, slow sits and stands, small circles that built joints without jarring them.

He also endured the low hum of chronic things. Those allergies, the occasional ear flare, one scary night when he vomited twice and looked at me like I had designed the universe poorly. I learned the difference between an emergency and a watchful night. I kept a log, not because I love paperwork, but because memory is a generous liar. Numbers steadied me: how many minutes between episodes, how much water he took, whether he accepted a small bite of boiled rice. We got through it with phone calls, common sense, and sleep on the floor next to him.

The lake as our classroom

I didn’t realize how much I was learning beside that water until the first time I visited without him. The lake had a texture, a smell that shifted from metal to bread depending on the wind, a sound that changed from clink to hush as the weather moved. With Wally, I had become fluent in those changes because they signaled how our park hours might go. On choppy days, dogs broke into factions, high-energy groups and contemplative pairs. On still days, even the barky ones softened at the edges. Wally was a mirror for that environment, attentive and adapting, and I learned to be the same.

The dog park near the lake isn’t just a rectangle of fence and dirt. It’s a village green with a leash at the gate. People brought their stories there, small and large. The woman studying for the bar exam who quizzed herself out loud. The teenager who came every Wednesday with his mom’s pug as part of his therapy. The older couple who lost their shepherd and still came to lend their hands to other fur. Wally let them rest their palms on his head and in return he asked only for presence. It’s a fair trade.

Times With Wally at the Dog Park near the Lake taught me a practical truth I carry into every crowded space. Approach at an angle, not head-on. Meet energy with a matched, slightly lower energy. Look for the dog who doesn’t know where to put his paws, the person who doesn’t know where to put her hands. Offer attention without obligation. Then step back and let everyone breathe.

Little gear, big difference

I’m not a gear evangelist, but a handful of good choices smoothed our life more than a dozen trendy purchases. A harness that clipped at the back stopped the pressure on his throat and gave me steer without pull. A leash with a traffic handle near the clasp saved us from awkward sidewalk tangles and kept us close in tight spaces. A silicone-lined travel bowl lived in my bag because thirst arrives like weather, without respect for schedule. A towel by the door meant mud stayed on the towel. I would rather wash textiles than mop floors.

The most important item wasn’t equipment at all, it was a note on the fridge with a short plan for emergencies. If something happened to me, a neighbor knew how to reach the vet, how much Wally ate, what voice command meant stop. You hope that list remains hypothetical. You will sleep better if you have it.

How Wally made work different

I write for a living, which means I sit for long stretches and then suddenly stand because I remembered my body is a body. Wally improved my productivity more than any app. He inserted commitments into the day at 8 a.m., noon, 4 p.m., and 9 p.m. Predictable movement, clear breaks, permission to think about something that is not work. During deadlines, he took the job of morale officer. He would stand in the doorway and wait. Not stare. Wait. If I was grinding, he reminded me that the lake still existed, the path still curved, and the swallows still drew their cursive over the water. We took ten minutes and came back better.

He also functioned as a focus group of one. Whenever a draft felt too stiff, I would read it aloud, and Wally would tilt his head if the cadence fit human speech. If I reached for a phrase that sounded like I was trying to impress people, he shifted his weight, as if to leave. When I found the shape, he settled and closed his eyes. It wasn’t scientific, but it worked.

Grief braided with gratitude

Dogs carry a shorter calendar than we do, which is the least fair thing about them. When Wally’s muzzle began to frost, I started measuring our time differently. Not frantically, not with dread, but with attention sharpened and softened all at once. He slowed a hair on the hills. He preferred the bench to the chase. He still did the footbridge thump, but with more ritual than sprint. I adjusted. I added a minute to the warm-up, a beat to the greeting, more softness to the goodbye.

When the end came, it came with clarity and mercy. He told me in the way dogs tell you, by letting you see that the world was too heavy for him to carry. I made calls I never wanted to make. We sat by the window where the light enters. I thanked him, not with words so much as with the length of my hand on his back, steady and sure. The house was different after. The towel by the door became a relic. The hallway echo became a memory.

Grief has a strange geometry. It occupies a larger space than the being that left. I walked the lake alone and learned each sound again without the metronome of Wally’s paws. The park community held me. People who knew us made space, said his name, told their versions of The Best Dog Ever in a handful of sentences. I learned that loss and love are not opposite directions. They are the same road with a hill you wouldn’t choose and a view you can’t forget.

What I would tell anyone about loving a dog like Wally

• Build your days around attention, not activity. A thirty-minute walk that includes three pauses and one shared look will do more than an hour of distracted motion. Dogs read your presence like weather. Be fair and be there.

• Practice the art of leaving a beat of silence after a cue. Say sit, then breathe. Give them the space to answer. It will feel like magic when they choose to meet you in that quiet.

We had many Fun Days With Wally. Not all of them were dramatic or shareable. Some were just the way his ears folded when he slept or the way he sat beside me while I laced my shoes, resting his chin on my knee for the exact length of time it took to tie a bow. The secret engine of those days was not novelty. It was the reliable return to simple things done with care.

Wally, The Best Dog and Friend I Could of Ever Asked For

I do not pretend to be objective about Wally. He was my dog, my metronome, my small compass. He moved me through the city and through my own head with more grace than I could have manufactured alone. He taught me to watch the weather at ankle height, to name the difference between habit and ritual, to greet strangers with a sideways stance, to quit the game while the joy is still rising. He made the dog park by the lake feel like a cathedral and the kitchen tile like a stage.

People sometimes say, you were lucky to find him. That’s true. But luck is only the start. The rest is choosing the walk when it rains, choosing patience when you have the short fuse, choosing to narrate the world in steady voice, choosing to make space on the couch, choosing to laugh when the carrot parade appears and you are late for a call. The rest is love, in plain clothes.

When I pass the lake now, I keep an eye on the footbridge. If I time it well, someone else’s dog will cross it at a run, and the hollow thump will ring. I always stop, just for a second, to count the beats. Then I keep moving, shoulders square to the wind, pockets full of treats I still carry out of habit. Somewhere, in the bright and ordinary places where all good dogs go, Wally is leaning into someone with his whole chest, floating half an inch above the ground, beginning yet another joyful journey. And in the ways that matter, he never really stopped walking beside me.