Every summer, I go to my parent’s cottage on a lake in Wisconsin and try to take a break from The EO List. Inevitably, what happens is that I experience something that makes me want to write a blog post, and this trip is no exception.

I have a 13 year old dog named Daphne. For anyone who knows anything about dogs, to be 13 is to be a senior citizen.

In Daphne’s younger years, the lake was her playground. She would run down there after breakfast and stay until dinner time. She would run and swim so much that she would be comatose around 9:00 p.m. and stay that way until the morning.

Fast forward to this year, and things have changed for her. When we arrived, she didn’t race down to the lake. She walked to the dock and then sat there rather than to go swimming. I can tell she’s lost her confidence and simple things she used to be able to do, she can no longer do. I can tell she is sad about that.

Except. . .

On our third day here, my husband was tossing the ball out in the lake for other dog, Mars, to retrieve. Mars is great but in terms of his dedication to retrieval, well, that’s not where his talents lie. After a few minutes of playing catch, he gave up and left a ball about 50 yards out in the lake.

Daphne was suitably unimpressed. She made all sorts of signals to us from the dock that one of the balls was still out there. She barked and whined about it for about 15 minutes.

Until. . .

There was a big splash. Our little lady mustered the strength to jump off the dock (height three feet above the water) and swim out to the ball and bring it back to us. We cheered her on and coaxed her as it was clearly an effort for her to swim that far. She barely made it up the stairs before collapsing on the grass and taking a long rest, but for the rest of the day she seemed more chipper than usual even if she didn’t go in again.

What I learned is this.

No matter how old you are, no matter how limited you are, there is still a puppy inside of us, and it is very cool when that puppy shows itself. At work, we should all tap into our inner puppy.