May 10, 2003
9:00 p.m.
Dusty and I went on many terrific walks today and she was on her best behaviour on all of them - a completely different dog than yesterday. When she's well-behaved, walking with her is a joy!
Things were going so well, I decided to try High Park. We had a blast! It's been about a week and a half since we last visited. In our absence, the trees have burst forth with new leaves. It was so beautiful!
I think Dusty enjoyed it too, at least most of it. On our way back through the woods, Dusty encountered some burrs. I stopped, sat down, flipped her over and removed them (this is the part where Etsuko thinks to herself: "Yup, schnauzers have a 'staff'!").
I set Dusty down on the ground, she was walking for less than 5 seconds when - you guessed it! - more burrs. So I sat down and flipped her over and removed them, set her back on the ground and...*sigh* More burrs!
This time, after I removed the burrs, I *carried* Dusty until we reached a portion of the trail that I'm pretty sure was burr-free. As annoying as this was to me, you can imagine how frustrated Dusty gets. Not only is she covered in prickly things (they stick to her beard so she can't open her mouth), but then she gets flipped over on her back and prodded and pulled at as other dogs walk by...oh, the indiginity!
All of the exercise she got today really wore her out. She slept all afternoon while I was away at my yoga class. How do I know this? Well, the dog bed inside her crate wasn't turned over and twisted into a pile (something Dusty usually does to express her displeasure at being left by herself). Right now, she's sleeping soundly. Last night, she as so exhausted that she didn't even wake me up and ask to go our at 2:00 a.m. And she didn't want to get out of bed this morning!
A pug friend at Dog Hill.
I'm becoming a big fan of LONG walks! Long walks = a tired puppy!