Drizzle-Light

Humans are obsessed with dieting. Gretchen always says that if someone fed her twice a day and took her out for walks, she’d be slim and trim like me, but unfortunately, while she gets a lot of walking in, it’s the feeding two times a day where she stumbles.

Today we had drizzle again, but in honor of all those diet commercials filling the TV, I’ll call it drizzle-light. Yes, we got wet. No, I didn’t have to wear my raincoat (!), but it was wet…at least in the morning.

When it’s wet like this, my hair gets really curly. Gretchen’s does, too, but most of the time, she wears a hat to keep the rain off her glasses. I’m happy she doesn’t make me wear a hat, but because I don’t, I’m pretty curly-headed these days. Despite the drizzle-light, though, we had a fun day.

For Gretchen it started with a doctor’s appointment while I stayed home and ate…drum roll please…my breakfast. That’s right. I didn’t wait until lunch to eat my meal. What a good boy I am. And then it was off to pick up Ollie and then Saber, the ever-growing puppy.

Because of the drizzle, Ollie got to wear my old red coat. He likes it, if you can imagine, as it keeps him warm while he bounces down the street the happiest doodle I know! Saber was happy to see us, though was a bit upset that we just went for a walk and NOT for a romp (that would come later). Ollie didn’t seem to mind…as long as there are treats, he’ll do anything! Like pose on the boulder for our photograph.

Which reminds me…Gretchen has made a New Year’s Resolution. After deleting over 5000 photographs from last year and saving her favorites on disc, she is resolved to not take too many photographs this year. This means, as you can see, that photographic representations of the day are limited, though I have a suspicious feeling that once the weather gets nice and the camera isn’t in danger of getting soaked, she’ll forget all about that resolution.

After our walk with Ollie and Saber, Gretchen dropped me off at home so she could walk Rosie. They headed up over the ridge and down through Frink Park. The first time Gretchen took Rosie there, she was a bit timid about wandering down the dark trail and into the forest, but today Rosie was very relaxed and quite excited to smell the wet ground and pose by a mossy tree.

Rosie got wiped down when she got home and then Gretchen swung by Gemma’s house to pick up the excited terrier. They went for a walk and then came by the house to pick me up. Gemma was full of energy so we headed to the tennis courts for a good romp before we headed out on another walk.

Our walk landed us, once again, at the boulder where Gemma practiced waiting before she jumped down and begged for a treat! Good job, Gemma!

We dropped Gemma off and then headed over to Saber’s house again. That’s when we had a curious mystery to solve. After we’d walked Saber in the morning, we’d left him with a Kong (a big rubbery toy stuffed with a treat) so he could gnaw on it while we were away. Well, when we got back to his house in the afternoon, not only was the treat gone, but the Kong was too. No sign of it whatsoever.

“You didn’t eat the Kong, did you, Saber?” Gretchen asked, but Saber just smiled his happy puppy smile and ran his big head into my bottom, trying to get me to play with him. Gretchen felt his belly, looked around the kennel and the house, and even looked in the sink in case someone had put it in there when they came home for lunch, but did they come home for lunch?

Well, if Saber had eaten the Kong, he showed no evidence of a big, rubbery thing in his belly. In fact, he was full of beans more than rubber as we headed over to the tennis courts to burn off some of his excess energy before our walk.

But then, who showed up, but Samson…

And then Milo…big dogs, I tell ya!

Samson kept trying to mount me while Milo tried to catch me. I was more interested in being chased than I was in being mounted and luckily, I’m very fast so neither Samson nor Milo could catch me! (Chaste and chased? Hmmmmm…curious!).

Milo, because he’s so big, doesn’t run too fast…this is his top speed!

Saber was thrilled with the extra playmates and they did their best to wear him out.

It was certainly enough to make our walk calm and relaxed! But what about that Kong? Where did it go?

Well, by the time we got home, there was an email from Saber’s Dad explaining that he did, in fact, come home for lunch and since Saber had nibbled part of his Kong, he took it out of the kennel. Whew, on one hand since Saber had NOT eaten the Kong, but he did nibble part of it off so eating the Kong is definitely something he attempted.

Puppies. What are you going to do with them?

My day is not yet over, though. I’m off to agility class tonight, the first of the New Year. I’ve been away for two weeks and I’m really ready to get out there back on the course! I’ll let you know how it goes. Thankfully, though, it’s stopped drizzling making the 40 minute drive south a lot more pleasant. Also, I’m trying to convince Gretchen that she could lose the weight she’s resolved to lose by doing agility with me — not just running along side of me giving me directions, but actually jumping the jumps, climbing the boards, weaving through the poles, and diving through the chutes.

She just smiles at me when I suggest things like this. “What?” I say, “It’s how I stay so fit and trim!”

Until tomorrow,

Rubin