I only know the Portland Maine reflected in the fur of a golden retriever. I have never taken a walk there not walking Merlin, a magical dog in that he has a yard in which he poops freely so that walking him is uninterruptedly unstooped. This dog, as far as I'm concerned, does not poop!
It's magical what a dog does to a place. As someone who walks staring distrustfully at the ground, walking Merlin means looking at the majestic mechanics of his swishing tail instead of cracked cement out to get me. I look at a literally golden thing. And people look at me attached to that thing, the leash like a painterly cue to lead their eyes. They're transformed by Merlin's presence: children writhe in their strollers, staring like pilgrims; adults wearing hangover sunglasses beam oddly. The air gets suddenly thick with words like "pumpkin" and "gorgeous." Merlin is kind of like beautiful weather concentrated in a dog: a dense package of universal happiness, water-cooler-happiness, as inarguably and as blandly good as the sun in the sky.
Walking Merlin also makes me aware of all the rabidly lonely dogs hidden behind windows, like having a radar for enraged spinsters.
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