dog walk

I took my dogs for a walk this afternoon after it had cooled down a little. The dogs are getting older so they're still pretty enthusiastic about the idea of going for a walk, but once we've gone a little ways, the older one in particular starts to drag on the leash. He becomes a lot more interested in stopping every few steps and checking out the smells (and adding a few of his own).

Meanwhile the younger one is pulling forward vigorously and I'm stretched in the middle. I try to assert my best Cesar Milan dominance but it's a struggle. The dogs want to go one way, or two ways, and I and the leash hold them back. Sometimes the effect of the leash is just to bend them to my will, for my own purposes (I want to get the walk finished) but sometimes the leash pull them to what is better for them, away from danger, like traffic, or out of trouble, like fights with other dogs, or situations they might not see as trouble but really are, like if they bite a passing runner.

I have a leash, too: my consicence, my sense of that better self I could be if I could just live that way more consistently. Am I straining this analogy? Like my dog there's a path I ought to be walking, and then there's me pulling this way and that, checking this out, distracted, getting into trouble, making a mess sometimes. And then there's a leash, trying to get me to walk where I should, to stay in line, focused on the task.

The theological question is who holds the leash? Some religions emphasize our inability to improve our own lives beyond a certain extent - Augustine's "That which I would not do, I do; that which I would do, I do not." and thus we rely on God's help. I tend to believe we have the ability to choose the best for ourselves, but certainly the evidence is that it's difficult to take ourselves for a walk.