monkeymom's Diaryland Diary
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Dogwalking 101
Put on socks and shoes, sitting on the floor, with the giant puppy sniffing eagerly around your feet, and, affectionately, around your face. Shove the happy puppy out of your face repeatedly with your elbow while tying shoes.
Take two (or three) plastic bags from the cupboard, shoving the excited puppy out of the way and trying not to step on her giant paws that are under your feet.
Get the leash. Tell the puppy to sit in a commanding voice. She will sit for about 4 seconds, and you have to commmand her again and shove her butt down until she stays so that you can get the leash hooked to her collar.
Take the cell phone and a bottle of water. All the supplies and the bounding puppy are really too much for one person to handle, so you need an assistant. If a sullen 15-year-old is all you can get, just make the best of it. The person holding the leash is not required to also scoop the poop and carry the bag for the rest of the walk -or until you pass a curbside garbage can.
As you exit the house, watch for cats who will try to escape while the dog is tangling up your feet with the leash.
Once out in the yard, the happy puppy will grab the leash in her mouth and start to run with you. Whether you run or not is up to you. The puppy thinks she is taking you for a walk. The initial excited running only lasts until she spots an interesting clump of dirt/grass to eat, and then she will stop abruptly and start nosing around for tasty bits of fungus, dried grass, bits of plastic...
When you are about 3 frontyards away from home, the puppy will chose a spot to poop. You are too far to dash back and throw the poop sack into your own garbage bins in your garage, so you have to carry it. If it's early in the week, there will be trash cans curbside on one of the nearby streets, so you can throw it away in someone else's can. Look around furtively to make sure no one is looking, lift the lid of the garbage can, fling the bag in and slam the lid down quick! Walk away rapidly.
The puppy knows the neighborhood, so she wants to walk down the streets where her little friends live. When Rich walks the dog, the dog decides where they will go, and she meanders from one side of the street to the other, sniffing, nibbling, and socializing. One of her best friends is the Shinu Ibu that lives two blocks away. That dog, whose name is something like Hiroshi, but that's not it, spends a lot of time on a leash attached to a clothesline, so he can run up and down the yard. Rich lets Buffy off of her leash and she runs around the yard with Hiroshi. It's actually pretty amusing to watch them. There is a big tree that they play hide and seek behind, and Hiroshi has been digging a hole next to the tree, so I'm a little worried that Buffy is going to trip and break a foot bone or something there, but so far so good.
There are some other dogs that Rich and Buffy visit when they go out together, but when I walk the dog, we walk my walk. We walk to the cemetary, approximately a mile, turn and walk through the cemetary (unless it's too dark, then we walk to the end of our street and turn around to go back, because damn, I'm not going to walk through the cemetary in the dark!) and when we get to the other side, we turn and walk back to our house. I limit the time she spends sniffing stuff and eating trash because I just want to walk. It's about a two mile route, and I walk it every day for exersize. This walk is all about me, and the dog is incidental. In fact, Kim and I love it when we don't have to take the dog with us!
If at any time on this walk, you pass another person, walking either alone, or God forbid, with another dog, hold tightly to the leash and haul Buffy in the other direction. People (in general) do not appreciate her enthusiasm to become their best friend. They are not interested in being jumped on, and they are usually not eager to let your dog sniff their dog's butt. Go fig, because their dog is very interested in sniffing and being sniffed. So you each haul on your dog in opposite directions, and drag them off toward their separate homes.
By the time we get back home, and the last few blocks are uphill, by the way, the dog is panting, with her tongue hanging out and dripping onto the sidewalk, and I am gasping for air and sweating profusely also. Plod across the lawn to the garage, throw the poop bag (if you couldn't dispose of it before this) in the garbage can, and drag your tired asses into the house. Collapse on the couch and beg Kim to bring some ice water.
Whew!
1:44 a.m. - 2004-07-28
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