Crash & Burn.

I haven’t said much about my poor hound dogs in awhile. I knew this would be the case after that little bundle of cuteness arrived . . . anyway . . . I snapped this darling photo of Sophie and Amos both wanting to go outside. Sophie was banging away on the glass and Amos walks up and, as if in slow motion, she stops and slowly looks up at him like he was the Trojan Horse. It was funny.

The dogs are doing ok. Noah split a toenail in half and it’s been a mess trying to keep him from licking it and we can’t touch his foot or he yelps. He was always a drama queen though so I think he’s more dramatic than he lets on.

And some rather cool dog news . . . I recently started working with a client that lives around the corner from George W’s new house in Dallas. We met outside down the street the other day and I said, “Let’s wait until this lady passes us with her two Scotties . . .” My client looks at me and says, “You know those are the Bush’s dogs, right?” And I looked again as she walked the two very handsome and well-groomed little terriers past us. Sure enough. So I saw the Bush dogs and their dog walker! Sorry no pic.

Harry Pooper, as David calls him, is doing great. His training is starting out nicely and he already sits like a champ on command and lies down. We are working on stay and walking nicely on the leash–nicely being the key word there. His leash skills are lacking.

I walk a couple of Golden Retrievers every Tuesday and Thursday morning and beginning in June I decided walking was not fun for me due to the heat and then the dogs weren’t getting long enough walks to do any good. My friend Michelle let me borrow her bike so I now bike while holding the leash and the dogs can run next to the bike. I do one dog at a time. Anyway, the other day I was riding along and I noticed a woman ahead of us walking her little Chihuahua on a Flexi leash (my pet peeve) while chatting on her cell phone. Riley likes other dogs a little too much and so I thought, well if I speed up he’ll be going too fast to be able to do anything. So I start to speed up. We come to the woman and her little yapper jumps out at Riley and he got all excited and pulled over to the back of the bike. I started to tumble down. I didn’t fall but jumped off the bike and kind of tossed the bike to the ground so I wouldn’t go down with it. Then I try to gather Riley up and get back on; he was being difficult aside from the fact that he’s 90-lbs of goofy Golden Retriever! The woman was just standing there, still on her phone and starts to apologize profusely. I said, “Don’t worry, it’s not your fault” as I’m still gathering myself and the bike and the dog. I hop back on and start to pedal and then realize the chain is off the gear of the bike. Wonderful. It’s only about 92 degrees out. And I hear the woman tell whomever she’s talking to on the phone, “Oh this poor woman, she just fell off of her bike and now the chain is off of it. . . ” I feel like a total moron. I get down and get the chain back on, have black, grease-covered hands and head back to Riley’s house. I laugh now just thinking about it, and even more when I think about the woman giving instant replays to the person on the phone about this poor red-headed fat girl falling off of her bike. So I ordered the K9 Bike Jogger. I’d been eyeing the thing for a few weeks and decided it would be worth the money because I’ve now been biking every week, twice a week for a month and sometimes at home with Noah. The K9 Bike Jogger attaches to the bike and allows the dog only enough room to run but not go behind or in front of the bike so that Chihuahua owners on the phone don’t have to report to their regatta gala friends about biking mishaps.

So far this week has just been full of fun days like that one. I’ve been incredibly busy, tired and I’m very ready for a few days of no dog training! So for now I’m off to bed and back up early to ride my bike with Riley again tomorrow. This week I get to do it 3 x instead of just 2. Say a prayer for me and that poor Chihuahua’s owner. . . .