Running like the wind - well, kind of....

This last week I started running again and decided to take both dogs with me. My 14 year old son runs daily, and so we drove over to the BPA trail with Suki and Frodo and started off down the trail. Suki was ecstatic. She trotted along and in her harness reminded me of the photos of Santa's reindeer, prancing along. Frodo, on the other hand, was not at all amused. So I jogged along, one arm pulled forward as Suki tried to catch up to my son and one arm pulled behind me as Frodo pulled back trying to make his nightmare end. At one point he stopped so suddenly that he collar pulled right off of his skinny rattie head. My son ran with Suki for awhile but after a couple minutes she was back with me. We ran about a mile and a half and walked an additional 2 and a half miles and Suki pulled the entire time.

The goal is that Suki will start to understand how to walk/run on leash. She did learn a few things, but not how to gracefully accompany her person while on leash. Here are some of her lessons:

• 14 year old boys have no patience


• 14 year old boys do not approve of sniffing forays off of the trail


• Don't run in front of people or they will step on your paws (she didn't learn a lesson here, but at the time of being stepped on she made note of it)


• Her foster mom is not a very fast runner and needs to be pulled at all times


• Water bottles are very fun to drink out of


• 14 year old boys don't like dog slobber on their water bottles

I'm sure there were some other things she noted, but this gives you the basic idea.

No photos were taken during the run (my hands were full and my son was about a mile ahead of us) but I wanted to include another cute photo of the princess. Sometimes her and Frodo will sit on the steps like this - one end sitting and the other standing - and we think it is so funny.