Dogs

I am, by no means, a model dog owner. Our dog jumps all over people when they enter the door. She has a piercing bark that she exercises regularly. She bites my toes if she doesn't want me doing things. These are all bad behaviors that I have simply let go.

Now, there are things that I feel we are good about. We are good about taking her for walks and controlling her on those walks. I thank dog training and Ceasar Milan for our success there. That being said, and me having pride in our dog walking, extend-a-leashes drive me nuts. I shouldn't be so general. People that walk along with their dogs extended 20 feet from them with zero control drive me nuts. There is a girl in our neighborhood that walks her dogs every morning and they are almost always 40 feet apart - one dog in either direction. This is very frustrating when trying to get an excited cairn terrier to poop. Until today, it was just an annoyance.

We were just starting our run, coming up a sidewalk. Here comes a guy with three dogs, each on his own extend-a-leash, each going in his own direction. As he sees us coming closer he sort of tries to corral the elasta-dogs. He kind of tries to get out of the way (not block the entire sidewalk). We move off onto the grass to run around him. As I pass, I assume I am in the clear. Not so much. His small black dog jumps up on my leg and I feel a sharp pain in my butt. It happened so fast, I didn't really know what happened. Then I heard Mike yell, "Hey dude, your dog just bit my wife!!!" Apparently Mike saw the dog open its mouth and chomp down. We took a few more strides and stopped. Sure enough, I had a dog mouth slobber print on my pants, and underneath, a tiny bit of blood. Not really knowing what to do, we just ran on. Talking about it later, we really should have stopped and gotten his information.

We ran our 8 miles. Again, I feel like a freaking power house. I can't believe that I can run 8 miles on a Wednesday evening. It is crazy to think how far I have come.

On the stretch home, there was a lady walking a big white dog with a little boy by her side. As she saw us coming, she moved off to the side of the sidewalk and told her dog to sit. It did, and the three of them watched us run by. As we passed, I said to her, "thank you so much!"