Sunny Saturdays

A little lost? Read our last chapter:  My Baby You'll Be

Dogs can change the way we look at life.

To preface this story, yesterday on our walk we were passing a nice lady walking for exercise when Leia stealthily snatched a paper towel off the ground. I told Leia to drop it and she did and the lady laughed and said that that was one sneaky grab. We laughed about it and went our separate ways but this morning on our return home she was out walking again, this time with her husband. As we got close she said that she was just telling her husband about Leia. Both of them smiled at us and went on  but its kinda interesting how man friends Leia is making (and helping me make.)

Later we took a short walk to check the mail and maybe run a little bit on the tennis court. Leia did her typical polite entry to the court but it soon became apparent to me that something was different today. I let her of the leash and began walking. She looked at me several times quickly and then looked at the ground, the fence, and the trees. I didn't get it... I watched her and soon realized, normally in the evening there was shade in that corner. No shade at 1pm. She walked as close to the fence as she could and stood on a tiny shadow. I know she prefers shade but-- then I saw it. She picked up a paw, then switched. "DUH Mommy it is hot as heck on this surface. You have shoes on!" I knelt down and sure enough the pavement was pretty warm. I hurried over and when I lifted the leash she ran straight to me as if to say "Oh thank GOD let's go!" and even sat quickly so we could hurry out of the gate. I felt like a bad mom for not even thinking the pavement might be hot but now I know, unless it's a mild day, tennis court is a morning and evening only exercise opportunity.

This evening I made a longer leash by connecting 3 transport leashes together and attached them to Leia's leash. We went out on the lawn and I let her run around and sniff a little bit first then we worked on recall and training. About half way through our session a neighbor was out on his porch. I apologized for kinda stealing his peaceful moment outside but he said it was cool and mentioned that Leia looked a bit like "Air Bud." Hehe it seems like everyone that sees her relates to her positively, with the exception of course, of the woman and the boy who were afraid of dogs. I told them that was fine, we'd walk a different way and they appreciated it.

All in all it was a good day.

Read our next chapter together! –  Locked Out!