My dog hasn't been getting enough exercise.
He once had the body of a sleek Rhodesian Ridgeback, or maybe some sort of mixed breed pointer/gun dog. Very sporty.
And then I stopped taking him out for his long runs. (A lot of this has to do with increased patrolling by animal control on a piece of property whihch is not incorporated within City Limits and has traditionally been used by locals as an off-leash dog park. But hey, when the guy shows up with his little white truck, I'd rather not argue the point. Instead, I bundle my dog back into the car and go home.)
OK, so anyway, my dog's getting thicker through the middle than he used to be. His legs aren't as muscular, and he's a lot more groany around the house. (As in, "I have to lie d-o-w-n here on the g-r-o-u-n-d.")
This morning (Saturday, mind you) I woke up and it was still dark out. OK, says I, get your butt out of bed and walk the dog. But it was dark, so I decided to take a shower. Got out--still dark. Got dressed--still dark. Made coffee--still dark.
But, hey! It's ten of six! The sun's coming up soon! I'm caffeinated. Ready to roll.
Bundle the dog in the car and drive down to the Official City Dog Park (a fenced area at the back of the community park). Park the car--still dark. Pitch black. Not the greying light of pre-dawn. No. Ink Black. Walk the dog to the dog park past a soccer field and a baseball diamond--still dark.
Once inside the park, I let him off the leash. And he didn't flex a muscle. Just stood there staring at my knees. Because it was--yep, that's right--still dark.
If I could have seen his face, I'm sure I would have seen that expression so many patient dogs display from time to time. The one that seems to say, "Eh, Mom? What were you thinking? Cause, you know, I can't see you. You can't see me. I can't see any tennis balls. Got a plan here?"
At some point the sun did come up, but, um, well, I'm glad not too may people saw me standing out there in the fenced-in park with my confused friend.
5 comments:
Hmm, two identical posts...I'll take a chance and comment on this one. Thanks for the laugh--you're amazing for getting up and out so early for the love of your dog. Myself, I've probably seen less than a dozen sunrises in the past year. And, hey, what's a Rhodesian Ridgeback? I think this calls for a link or photo.
Well, we noticed that Rocky was looking too thin and that Cody was the size of a house. Great. Turns out Cody has been getting Rocky to leave his food bowl so he can finish eating. So Rocky is only getting about 2 cups of food while Cody is getting 4 cups of food. We stopped that by feeding them separately again. (We used to do this but I noticed that Cody was having problems swallowing so he wasn't finishing before Rocky - apparently he has gotten over that) So now, we know Rocky is getting the right amount of food and that Cody should soon start to lose the ottoman look he has going on.
I tell ya, like 2 year olds.
CindyS
Whoa. How did I get two?
Off to delete the other post--will it make this one go away? Hmmm.
p.devi -- I'm not sure I got up for the love of the dog. I just woke up and decided to go walk him without really taking a good look at the clock.
Cindy -- Two year olds. Definitely.
My aunt once had two stallions in training. They lived in portable stalls in the arena. One was getting thin, the other was getting fat. Turns out one was standing on his tippie toes and streeeetching his neck over the stall partition to eat the other's food. Skinny boy would just step away and watch piggers eat everything.
Nothing like a vicious stallion....
I cannot believe you were up so early. I often feel like your dog does.
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