This week was a bit stressful, so I decided to just share the tail of two doggies. Two doggies on a walk, that is. I know, I know: this picture isn’t of a walk, but seriously I am risking life and limb as it is and trying to take a pictures would probably kill me. Literally. Here is a picture of Toby on my face, however:
I somehow felt that we could all use a bit of humor right now.
Every morning I take Toby and Sunny out for a walk before work (or church). We have a routine. The dogs see me walk towards the entryway and they rush to the door. Toby begins hopping and doing a kinda circle-ish dance of pure excitement – jumping, prancing, circling, licking, landing on my foot, etc. Sunny comes and just looks at me with a look of pure hope. I tell the dogs to sit. I discovered from hard experience that I have to put Toby’s leash on first because otherwise he chases Sunny while I’m trying to put hers on. So I grab the leash and approach Toby. He starts hopping. I remind him to sit and wait. He can’t. He keeps wiggling. I stand up straight, look him straight in the face, and tell him to sit and wait or we’re not going anywhere. He then sits fairly still while I try to attach the leash. I say fairly still because his head keeps moving as he burrows that head into my hand – the hand trying to find the loop on the collar to attach the leash to. Whew! It’s finally done. I turn to Sunny, tell her to sit, and she docilely awaits the leash attachment ritual.
It’s finally time to go outside. Not so fast. Toby, after getting his leash on, loves to sit immediately in front of the door, making it impossible to open. Now, we learned in doggie kindergarten that Toby needs to wait away from the door while I open it, and then he waits until I give him permission to move. Unfortunately, that’s not what happens. Toby is parked. In front of the door. He is not moving. Okay, he is moving – at least his thumping tail is. The rest of him is sitting in front of the door wondering why I haven’t let him out yet. I snap my fingers and try to get him to move. Nope. I yank on the collar to redirect him. No good. I growl. I push him. Nothing happens. Finally, however, after a bit of a stare down, Toby moves. Slightly. Just enough to crack open the door. At that point, with the door barely ajar, he moves – usually wrapping his leash around me in his boundless joy as he does so. At this point Sunny is nothing but eager to get outside and is also moving towards the door. I got her as an abused older dog and she isn’t really trainable, even though she is generally an extremely good girl, so any instruction other than “sit” doesn’t sink in. Anyway, she moves towards the door and I am now in a tangle of leashes.
Okay, we get untangled and move to the porch while I try to get the leashes into the right hands. See, Toby is strong and only my right hand has the strength to handle his leash. Sunny, however, only likes being on my right side. There is a lot of cross-body movement going on here. I pray they don’t drag me down the steps. It’s only happened once, so I’m lucky, but I take precautions every day: must have correct hands for leashes before we attempt those steps.
Once out-front Sunny goes potty since she has issues against using the backyard in the morning. Don’t ask. Toby chooses to roll in the grass or race to the tree. I’m still holding both leashes. Sunny finishes her business and finally we can start walking.
My basic morning circuit is to go twice around the block. It’s safer that way with fewer surprises and sidewalks the entire way. Sunny at first trots demurely alongside me, while Toby decides there’s a piece of grass that he absolutely positively has to sniff. He does so and Sunny gets intrigued and races in front of me to reach the same piece of grass. Together they sniff that blade of grass. By sniff, I mean sniff. It is one seriously exciting spot. I’m watching the time, however, for I do need to get to work, so with much effort I get the dogs moving. That is, at least, until they reach this one particular bush. That bush is obviously the most glorious bush in all of doggydom, for they are fully enamored. Another yank and we’re on our way.
We turn the corner and the historic buildings to my left get Sunny all excited. She tries to race over and climb underneath. I don’t let her. Meanwhile Toby is trying to roll in the grass on my right. I am now in full Gumby position, my arms nearly coming out of my sockets. A few “ahems” and tugs and we’re back on the road.
This past week there has been a large pile of dirt in one of the neighbor’s driveways around the corner. It was once taller than it is now, thanks to Toby enjoying playing king of the hill. After he shakes the dirt of that place off his feet he starts running. I tell him to sit. He ignores me. I tell him to sit. I tell him to sit. The leash is wrapped around me arm to keep Toby close, but my arm is now turning weird colors. I stamp my foot and once more, in the gruffest possible voice, tell him to sit. He sits. I follow the training instructions and try to force us to walk the other direction. Sunny decides I’m a maypole instead. After untangling myself and doing our walking-the-other-direction-before-moving-back-to-the-way-we-were-originally-going we continue on our walk.
This past week there were unleashed dogs on our path. I told my dogs to sit. Sunny tried to hide in a bush. Toby tried to chase the dogs. Yeah, you see how well that went. One owner picked up his dog, but the other two dogs enjoyed running towards us while Toby tugged at his leash. Stamping my foot does seem to have some kind of efficacy for Toby. It got his attention. Eventually both of my dogs did sit. Victory.
This week I also discovered something brilliant. Did you know that you should never throw a stick for a large dog to fetch when said dog is on a leash wrapped around your wrist? Yeah. Well, now you know, hahahaha!
After many more fascinating bushes, trees, blades of grass, holes, and lamp posts, we finally make it back home. If I only gave us 15 minutes then we only get one circuit around (if I walk it without the dogs it takes me about 2 minutes), but sometimes we manage to go a second time if we started with closer to 20 minutes. The second go-round is always faster. Once finished though, I tell the dogs to go home, and they do. In what is the most hilarious sight, Toby races to the front door and sits. I don’t have to say a word. He just sits. I remove Sunny’s leash and then Toby’s. Sunny jumps up and down, but Toby continues sitting. Why? I dunno. For some reason this lesson has stuck with him. Anyway, I open the door for my unleashed dogs and they race into the house – over to the kitchen – and act as if inside the house is the most exciting place they’ve ever been. I give them treats. We survived.
Have a great week!
Look to God and Live... Joyfully! 