Saturday, April 20, 2013

Dog running

Ok - I know that it's a crappy picture, but it is impossible to take a suitable picture of one's dogs while running with them...  I'm actually surprised that it came out at all (I only gave myself one shot at it).   But the point is that I ran with my dogs again this weekend - and it is always so different than when running without them.  This was along a path next to Potomac River on a totally awesome morning ~ 49deg.

Obviously, running without them is so much easier, but their companionship and the joy that they seem to get out of being out there with me is very cool.  So many smells, so many things to pee on, interesting critters to want to chase...

These guys aren't much for distance; 3 miles with a break in between somewhere is about all they are good for.  After a bit, the dog on the left starts lagging on me and I have to encourage him to finish with me.  More than once we've had to finish at a walk rather than at a run because he got too tired, or perhaps because something was bothering him.

I give these guys a lot of credit for helping me run:  in my early days (all of 4 years ago), they helped me run faster than the slow shuffle jog that I was calling "running".  Back then, I struggled to keep up with them; at first I could only do it for short spurts; now they pretty much signal  me to stop or slow down after a bit.

But it is so much  pleasure when we get into an easy lope and they are just trotting along with me.  The dog on the left puts his ears back, the black dog on the right seems to always have her ears out, and both of them always smelling for something.  Woe is me if the black dog spots a squirrel or a rabbit and I'm not prepared to rein her in.

Running on this particular trail is handy in that I don't have to travel with water.  Both pups just wade right into the river and drink their fill. In this picture, she's spotted some ducks and I know that she's wondering if she can catch them...

I wish that I felt confident enough to slip their leashes and just let them run, but I'm concerned about what they would get into.

As we were cresting one particular hill, a very large tan dog appears sans a leash....   He stopped when he saw us, effectively blocking the narrow trail, and so I naturally also stopped. Is this dog by himself or what?  I didn't want to attempt to pass him and risk a confrontation of some sort, given how narrow the trail was and how big he was (he was huge!), so we all just starred at each other for a little bit until his owner showed up. It was only 20-30 seconds, but it seemed like a long time - I had enough time to start considering my possible options...  It was just kind of weird how this huge dog was literally dominating the trail and waited for his owner to tell him what to do with us.  It all ended well - the owner was a very pleasant lady who shoo'ed her dog onwards and around us, noting that her dog had never had a leash in his life....  nice.