I took Emma to Bouldin Creek Coffeehouse tonight. My plan was to take some pictures and read a little. I’ve been working on Middlesex for well over a month now and I was kind of hoping to get at least halfway through. I’d made it about five pages and had almost finished my Italian soda when a woman sat down two tables away from me. She had with her what I think were two German Shepherd puppies, probably about eight or nine months old. Emma started tugging against her leash and when she realized she couldn’t get away from me to greet the other dogs she started whimpering and finally barking. Not annoyingly really, although I started to get nervous that it would become annoying if I couldn’t get her to stop. Before I could calm her down, the woman got up and brought her dogs over.

“Can they meet him?” she asked.

“She’s a her, and I think so!” I said. Emma hadn’t been nose to nose with another dog since I brought her home, and I wasn’t sure how she’d handle it. “I’ve only had her a week and she hasn’t met any other dogs yet, so I’ll have to keep a close watch.”

Nervously holding her leash I let Emma meet the two puppies who were actually a little bigger than Emma despite their youth. They sniffed, pawed, and rubbed up against one another. I thought how funny it would be if two humans did that to each other when they met for the first time. Of course, I didn’t say this out loud. The woman was quite cute, I’m guessing in her mid-thirties, and that would have been a pretty weird thing to say to a cute stranger, right? Right.

“So you’ve only had her a week? Is she a rescue dog?”

“I got her from Town Lake,” I said.

The woman sat down at my table, and while her dogs and my dog got to know each other, she and I continued to talk. I kept looking down at Emma, who had managed to tangle herself up in her leash no less than three times in the span of about a minute. My conversation with the woman lasted about ten minutes. We talked about how hyper puppies and Jack Russells are, about kennels (I’m thinking I’m going to have to get a kennel for Emma on account of the considerable damage she’s doing to my house while I’m at work), and we talked about how much fun her dogs had at the lake today.

By that time, Emma had climbed into my lap and the woman stood up to leave. “It was nice to meet you,” she said, even though we never officially met. “You, too!” I said. And then she and her puppies were gone. I put my stuff back into my bag, and as I headed to my car I wondered if that woman ever would have come up to talk to me had it not been for Emma. I’ve heard people say that dogs can be great social ice breakers but I never thought to put it to the test. I’d have to say those people are right.