Muddy Paws and the Little Graces

It rained last night—the kind of rain that carries a perfume. Earthy and clean, like the sky rinsing off its dusty apron.

Around here, when it rains, everything feels a little more alive. The pasture gets its color back, the fence posts swell up and creak like remembering something, and the bugs, Lord bless them, take up their instruments and throw a jamboree by the back ditch.

We’ve got two dogs. Buddy and Honey. Buddy’s part German Short Hair, part question mark. He’s got eyes that look like he’s always figuring something out, even if it’s just how to steal a biscuit without using his paws.

Honey’s a Staffordshire Terrier, blue-gray in color, all heart and gentle disposition, who smiles with her whole rear end. Not subtle, that one.

So this morning, after the rain, I stepped onto the porch with a cup of coffee, turning lukewarm. The sky’s no longer crying, but everything else still glistens with tears.

There they are—Buddy and Honey—racing up a storm in the backyard. Mud up to their elbows, tails going like rotary fans. They’ve turned the grassless patch into something that looks like an archaeological dig. And before I can even shout something about “tracking in dirt” or “getting hosed off first,” they charge the porch like two four-legged freight trains bound for glory.

Buddy hits the dog door with his head—flings it wide open like he owns the place—and Honey’s right behind him, flipping bits of mud across the hardwood like Jackson Pollock with a pawprint fetish. They’re soaked, muddy, panting, and unapologetically pleased with themselves

Ashamedly, I’d have hollered and made a federal case of it a few years ago. Gone on about how we “don’t live in a barn” and how the couch isn’t a napkin.

But something has shifted in me. Maybe it’s maturity or the quiet ache throughout my body every morning reminding me I ain’t no youngster anymore. Or perhaps it’s just that I’ve lost enough folks now to understand the difference between tragedy and inconvenience.

So, instead of yelling, I just put my coffee in the microwave, turn it on, and chuckle as it warms. “Well, I guess we’re mopping today, huh?” I say to nobody in particular.

Buddy cocks his head like he’s just now realizing that might not be a compliment. Honey rolls on the floor with all the subtlety of a wet hog in Sunday clothes, begging for belly rubs.

So. I grab an old towel we’ve saved for such things and crouch down. Buddy sits like a gentleman, tail sweeping mud onto my jeans, and lets me wipe his paws. Honey leans into me, all 90 pounds of love and zero remorse.

And I don’t mind one bit. Not the mess, the dirt jeans, not even the pawprints that now lead from the door to the couch like little brown signatures. What’s a clean house compared to this kind of joy?

Life’s too short to scold angels for forgetting their shoes, especially earthbound ones with muddy paws and hearts three times the size of brains.

Let them in. Let them jump on the couch. Mop the floor if you must, but keep the welcome open wide.

Eventually, all hardwood floors have to get mopped, anyway.