Arriving at a north Portland park early this morning, I watched as an older man gathered trash in a large bag while his shepherd mix dog meandered about the parking area. Initially irritated waiting to unload my dogs, (I can be annoyingly short tempered when things aren't going my way) I realized he wasn't picking up his trash; he was performing a service – general clean up of a public area. As he carried his load to the garbage can, memory tumbled in, and though he is thinner and grayer now, I recognized an old familiar face.
I used to see Mike and his wife years ago, long before we found Nicholai, when our now departed girl-dogs were manic young pups. Mike and Sandy walked a variety of dogs over the years and we knew each other first by dogs, then by sight, and finally by name. For two summers, we came to the park daily with a garbage bag each, to clean up picnic areas and beaches left littered by afternoon picnickers. 
Years have passed and we have all gotten noticeably older. Sandy stays home due to arthritis, Mike comes only sporadically, and countless
days over that past five years have seen me trekking elsewhere with my unruly crew. Numerous dogs have flown over the rainbow bridge between us; we have cried and hugged each other over dogs lost to age, infirmity, and cancer.
In his act of picking up someone else's garbage, I recognized a man whose last name I don't even know, but who is so much more than an acquaintance. This is a friend with whom the ties are so loose as to never know if I will see him again, but so plain and true as to laugh at canine antics, to work together to keep an area we care about clean, to share separate but common heartbreak when our companions leave us. 
I hadn't seen Mike in a coon's age, didn't know if I ever would, didn't worry about it. Like with dogs, our relationship is a hundred percent in the moment with no strings attached, which is part of the beauty.
My dog-walking life contains a few people like Mike. People I only see at the river's edge or on the trail, our dogs racing about or following demurely at our feet. People whose daily life I know little about. Still, by the simple act of returning to the same place to walk with our dogs, day after day, week after week, and year after year, we create a tapestry of community.
My life is enriched by these vibrant threads that weave connection, but do not bind.
Sweet post, Mary. Some of the best times I've had have been with dog park friends, before and after off-leash areas became popular. And I have thought often lately of the bearded man who lived by Cedar Lake (an informal dog area in Minneapolis) in a longhouse he couldn't even sit up in. I never knew his name, but he always seemed to have a connection with the lake and the woods around it. Always a cheery face.
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