One thing Ollie (the Border Collie) has yet to master is to not pull on
the lead! He is surprisingly strong for such a skinny dog! Jake (The
Utonagon) is brilliant, in fact he walks that close by my side whether
he is on a lead or not that he often trips me up!
Dog walking in our family consists mainly of throwing a stick for Ollie a thousand times, which he then brings back to us and stares at it until we throw it again (Yes, it can be rather tedious!)...to be honest I think he may well be a little bit OCD about sticks! Whilst Jake happily ambles along at the side of us smiling.
So this day started off no differently than any other day...Ollie dragged me all the way to the dog walking area, almost dislocating my shoulder, until it was safe to let him off his lead! (whilst he is well behaved off his lead, there is always the chance that he will see a squirrel or a cat on the other side of the road and take off chasing it before we have chance to call him back!)
I let him off his lead and he was off like a rocket, running backwards and forwards, running circles round trees, hiding in the bushes and then jumping out on me, chasing his stick...he's great to watch, even though the dogs go on this walk several times a day every day, Ollie always manages to make it his own! It's like every day is a new adventure....Oh! to be young and stupid again and have all that enthusiasm for the simplest of things!
There's a large playing field at the end of the walk, I think it was originally intended for children to play football on, but they prefer to do that outside my house...it seems kicking the ball at my car, or into our garden, risking getting run over by passing traffic and just being generally annoying is much more enjoyable for them! We always stop at this field before setting off for home...Stick throwing of course! Jake usually lies down at this point, although every now and again he gets a sudden spurt of energy and races Ollie to the stick, if he gets there first it's game over though, because he refuses to give it back!
Today's stop off at the playing field was a bit more eventful than usual. A young lady joined us with a small black dog. She was stood chatting to me whilst I went through the relentless task of throwing Ollie's stick until my arm ached that much I was sure it was about to drop off!
Jake was lying on the wet grass in-between the 2 of us, smiling like he always does.
Quite a pleasant conversation took place between the 2 of us....until I threw the stick for Ollie for the millionth time, he did his usual bizarre ritual of fetching it and then running circles around me before dropping it....However I think he was a little over enthusiastic with his herding instincts today...he decided to give me a sharp nip at the back of the leg as he ran around me, right in the bend of my knee! My knee gave way and I fell forward..the young lady tried to stop my fall, but instead I took her with me...So there we both were huddled up in a heap, on top of Jake in the mud, not knowing whether to laugh or cry!
The young lady's dog started barking and jumping all over us, clearly under the misconception that this was some fabulous new game we had invented! Jake looked totally bewildered and squashed and Ollie just stood there staring at his stick and wondering why I wasn't throwing it for him!!
Dog walking in our family consists mainly of throwing a stick for Ollie a thousand times, which he then brings back to us and stares at it until we throw it again (Yes, it can be rather tedious!)...to be honest I think he may well be a little bit OCD about sticks! Whilst Jake happily ambles along at the side of us smiling.
So this day started off no differently than any other day...Ollie dragged me all the way to the dog walking area, almost dislocating my shoulder, until it was safe to let him off his lead! (whilst he is well behaved off his lead, there is always the chance that he will see a squirrel or a cat on the other side of the road and take off chasing it before we have chance to call him back!)
I let him off his lead and he was off like a rocket, running backwards and forwards, running circles round trees, hiding in the bushes and then jumping out on me, chasing his stick...he's great to watch, even though the dogs go on this walk several times a day every day, Ollie always manages to make it his own! It's like every day is a new adventure....Oh! to be young and stupid again and have all that enthusiasm for the simplest of things!
There's a large playing field at the end of the walk, I think it was originally intended for children to play football on, but they prefer to do that outside my house...it seems kicking the ball at my car, or into our garden, risking getting run over by passing traffic and just being generally annoying is much more enjoyable for them! We always stop at this field before setting off for home...Stick throwing of course! Jake usually lies down at this point, although every now and again he gets a sudden spurt of energy and races Ollie to the stick, if he gets there first it's game over though, because he refuses to give it back!
Today's stop off at the playing field was a bit more eventful than usual. A young lady joined us with a small black dog. She was stood chatting to me whilst I went through the relentless task of throwing Ollie's stick until my arm ached that much I was sure it was about to drop off!
Jake was lying on the wet grass in-between the 2 of us, smiling like he always does.
Quite a pleasant conversation took place between the 2 of us....until I threw the stick for Ollie for the millionth time, he did his usual bizarre ritual of fetching it and then running circles around me before dropping it....However I think he was a little over enthusiastic with his herding instincts today...he decided to give me a sharp nip at the back of the leg as he ran around me, right in the bend of my knee! My knee gave way and I fell forward..the young lady tried to stop my fall, but instead I took her with me...So there we both were huddled up in a heap, on top of Jake in the mud, not knowing whether to laugh or cry!
The young lady's dog started barking and jumping all over us, clearly under the misconception that this was some fabulous new game we had invented! Jake looked totally bewildered and squashed and Ollie just stood there staring at his stick and wondering why I wasn't throwing it for him!!
We did laugh afterwards and I returned home feeling battered and bruised and completely covered in mud!
I have never seen that young lady since that day....I wonder if she has chosen another route to walk her dog now, just in case she meets me again?!
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