Monday, May 31, 2010

Weave!

In all kinds of weather, I often take Sandy to the trails behind the Capital News Centre.  On one side of the road is a path that parallels the creek.  On the other side of the road are the sports fields, and paths that take you past ball diamonds, football fields, and soccer pitches.

For a way to keep warm --- warmER, really --- during the winter, I’ve been showing Sandy how to weave between the concrete polls on the sports field side of the road.  It’s fun because she has to stay on leash there, and the polls are far enough apart that we both get to weave.

She’s always been willing to do it, but she’s always been clear that she just didn’t see the point of the whole thing.  “THAT’s three minutes of my life I’ll never get back.”

A good place to weave.A good place to weave. 

But the other day we were walking on the path, she looked up at me, and without any prompting at all started to weave.  The only problem was she decided to weave between the polls that have the chains on.

A bad place to weave.A bad place to weave. 

It turns out it’s possible for a dog on leash to do that, but it is not possible to do that without getting really tangled up.

Sunday, May 09, 2010

What could possibly be going through her mind?

Sandy and I were playing stick in the front yard this afternoon, when suddenly she just stopped, and looked like this:

Sandy DogShe stood there for over a minute, tail relaxed, ears not twitching, checking out something to which I was completely oblivious.

Then, she just got on with her life.  She picked up the stick, trotted over to another section of the yard, lay down and continued with the important task of peeling all the bark off the stick.

I wonder if Sandy is just as confused by strange things I do, making a double espresso in the morning, or standing over the table and adding things to the grocery list.