Sunday dog walking...
Aug. 20th, 2017 03:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylOut for an early run ahead of Sunday dog walking. The original plan had been to go to the dog show at the Double Locks, but the others were busy sorting out all sorts of domestic chores and we were too late. Instead, we all went for a walk down by the river and the dogs had fun chasing tennis balls.
The only minor problem turned out to be ensuring everyone got a chance to retrieve a ball. Because Martha won't fetch things if there are bigger dogs around — she's quite small and remembers having things taken off her when she was young — we had to engineer things so that someone threw one ball for the spaniels and, while they were distracted, someone else threw another one in the opposite direction for Martha.
This strategy worked successfully the first few times we tried it. It was only when Dasher, swimming back with her ball, noticed that the other one bobbing in the water that things started to go askew. She swam out towards to the other ball, putting Martha off, but couldn't actually bring it back because she already had a tennis ball in her mouth and couldn't fit both at the same time. Eventually, she brought her ball back — dropping it in a very muddy puddle in the process — leaving the other to float away. Fortunately, the crisis was averted by a passing labrador, who kindly retrieved the second ball for Martha.
Partway round the field, the others got talking about a fence post A had tried to climb a few days before. After making a decent attempt this time round — in her defence, she was wearing wellies — I reluctantly let myself get talked into it. Although it was a decent height — maybe 1.5m — it was probably 25cm in diameter and actually pretty easy to mantel, even if I did use a cheeky knee, rather than go for a proper hand-foot on the top.
After a couple of hours — the time flew by — we fetched up back at the quay. I'd originally planned to go for a climb, but my left knee was nagging slightly, so I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and went home to watch the finals of the bouldering from Munich.
The only minor problem turned out to be ensuring everyone got a chance to retrieve a ball. Because Martha won't fetch things if there are bigger dogs around — she's quite small and remembers having things taken off her when she was young — we had to engineer things so that someone threw one ball for the spaniels and, while they were distracted, someone else threw another one in the opposite direction for Martha.
This strategy worked successfully the first few times we tried it. It was only when Dasher, swimming back with her ball, noticed that the other one bobbing in the water that things started to go askew. She swam out towards to the other ball, putting Martha off, but couldn't actually bring it back because she already had a tennis ball in her mouth and couldn't fit both at the same time. Eventually, she brought her ball back — dropping it in a very muddy puddle in the process — leaving the other to float away. Fortunately, the crisis was averted by a passing labrador, who kindly retrieved the second ball for Martha.
Partway round the field, the others got talking about a fence post A had tried to climb a few days before. After making a decent attempt this time round — in her defence, she was wearing wellies — I reluctantly let myself get talked into it. Although it was a decent height — maybe 1.5m — it was probably 25cm in diameter and actually pretty easy to mantel, even if I did use a cheeky knee, rather than go for a proper hand-foot on the top.
After a couple of hours — the time flew by — we fetched up back at the quay. I'd originally planned to go for a climb, but my left knee was nagging slightly, so I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and went home to watch the finals of the bouldering from Munich.
