A Day in the Life....

 

9:00 a.m.
Henry and I picked up coffee and drove around one of our walk routes.  It clocked at exactly one mile.

9:30 a.m.
Henry helped me put stuff away around the house.  I'm thinking I need to set up a Henry safe sewing area.  He is already pretty good in my ceramic studio for some reason despite the temptations.  Somehow, my boy finds pins, bobbins and scraps are very, very interesting.

10:00 a.m.
We are going for our walk before it gets too hot. It is only 71 degrees now but it is suppose to get up to 92 degrees and that is too warm for much of a trek for me! Southern California has its advantages:  right now we have blue cloudless skies, tomatoes still flourishing, oranges and lemons on my trees - very tasty, beautiful flowers flowering in my gardens. So....I guess I should shut up and take Henry for our walk.  He keeps giving me the "Hey, Sue, what's up?" look.

11:10

We only went around the block.  Here is the problem:  Henry has no concept of human-in-charge.  No, it is not that he needs a potty break.  We usually potty before and after our walk since he is so distracted on the trip. He is so overcome by the smells and sounds that he freezes in place.  It is more of a "Oh my gosh, this is so incredible" thing.  Unfortunately, I am walking along at my (admittedly not fast) human pace and end up with pulled puppy on my leash.  I know I look like an abuser - I'm not, I'm not, I swear.

I planned our one mile trek - and only made it around the block. It took the same amount of time that the one mile does on a good day. Okay dog lovers:  what is up with that? Why does Henry zoom, zoom, zoom all perky and ready to romp on one day and the next regress to Henry the day-dream-dog? A leaf, a sprinkler puddle, a dog's bark, a car passing, another human passing. They all work, but even a nothing-that-I-can-identify, distracts too.

Sometimes a training treat is not even enough to get him going. He is now at my feet on his stuffed puppy cube in his innocent "I am not a threat to the cats" pose.  This of course is not fooling any animal in my house but he is giving a pretty successful impression of one tired puppy. 

We need a shallow burbling stream with a tumbled rock bed to visit off leash.  Then I wouldn't get the "I'm bored with this" sit-down-strike from Henry. Now that is something we do not have in beautiful sunny Southern California and Henry would love it!  So all of you  "I miss the sun and warmth" folks up there in the cloudy, drizzly, chilly north" just remember ... oh, wait a minute.  I wouldn't even be outside to enjoy that burbling stream, so never mind.

We will have lunch and maybe go to the nursery to pick up some impatients. They looked great in one of the yards Henry and I passed during our non-walk today.