Usually we move purposefully, Copper and I. But our purposes are not the same. He has his goals and I have mine. For him, a splendid walk wouldn’t be a walk at all, but a series of stops and starts. Full-tilt runs followed by dead standstills. Meanderings and sniff-fests. Ambles.

Whereas I have a distance marker, a point I’d like to reach — say Fox Mill Road — he lives for the next sign post, guard rail or fire hydrant.

But yesterday our wishes were one and the same. It was late; it was warm. We wanted a brief jaunt, a slow burn. No way would we make it to Fox Mill Road.

So we turned down a pipestem and ogled some showy phlox. (Well, I ogled the phlox; he salivated at a squirrel.)

We paused often to look at the sky. (Well, I looked at the sky; he sniffed the grass.)

The heat and humidity slowed his normal rocket-fire pace to a more comfortable stride where the two of us were walking side by side — almost as if he was heeling.

“You’re doing a great imitation of a well-behaved dog,” I told the little guy. Luckily, his sarcasm meter is always set to low. He looked up at me with his big brown doggie eyes, wagged his tail — and we both kept on walking.