Ode to the Dogs in Friendship, Arkansas

Now, Texas dogs will cut down a 20 mph cyclist like an antelope.

Yessir.

Lusting for the hyper-oxygenated blood from an engorged calf

those Texas dogs calculate the angle like a blue-chip defensive back under the Friday Night Lights and they’ll come after you.

And if they can catch you, they’ll eat you down to your teeth, hair and eyeballs and floss their teeth with the sweaty lycra you were wearing.

But the dogs in Friendship, Arkansas, free from the cultural baggage of being Texas dogs,

run even faster

but they’ll just lope alongside you

backs bowed, fur flying, tongues lolling, paws burning on gravelly shoulder semi-pavement.

“Fear not!” they want to say. “Just let us obey some instinct for the chase. We’re not hurting anything. Just let us run with you for no doggone good reason.”

Just let us run just because.