Walkies!

I believe that Dogger had the best weekend she has ever had, or at least the very best Sunday on record.

Sunday morning we toured downtown, which was fun and opened up new territories for her to first sniff and then pee on. Dogger loved getting to check out the new construction and I enjoyed the chance to window shop – Yes, in downtown Raleigh!, window shopping! True, it was literally window shopping, but that was my doing. I could have gone to look in the window of this other cute store but I don’t want to reward the cute store or torment myself since the cute store is only for only open Monday-Friday 10-4 because that means that I will never be able to shop there myself! I am hoping once they get the whole Fayetteville Street thing together that that will provoke some of the other stores down there to have more reasonable hours.

Dogger doesn’t care about cute stores though. Dogger wanted for the restaurants to be open, yes, there are restaurants downtown! I know! I was surprised too. Again, they weren’t open for lunch because Gawd forbid that the chamber of commerce and the restaurants operators try to bring anyone downtown on the weekends.

The best part of Doggers day came later. Dogger and I went to Brosky and Alphagals , if you noticed a disturbance in the force, it’s because Alphagal went to Spain with her Mother. Join me in a brief moment of sheer green eyed jealousy
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Alphagal in Spain
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Okay, moving on.

Anyway. Broskey, Nephdog, Dogger and I went for a walk in their woods. Dogger was so happy! The woods are full of deer and all make and model of other, smaller stinky critters and Dogger was just thrilled to be in the same airspace as all those good smells. She was even leashed most of the time and she was still the happiest dog ever.

And then, then she went off leash.

New heights of Happy Dog! She ran! She tussled with Nephdog! She smelled new smells! Oh Joy Oh Rapture! She didn’t care it was cold! She didn’t mind that her sweater is too small now and was bunching up in a very unflattering way - she was just having a blast and she hadn’t even discovered the creek yet.

Dogger was having such a good time bounding around she hardly thought about the creek at all. Then she saw Broskey and Nephdog jump the creek. They did it easily (Dick Buttons and Scott Hamilton would be proud of their synchronized leaping).

I thought I was going to have to help Dogger across, what with her countless fears, I was afraid she might decided that Death From Above would also count as Death From Below when she saw the water in the creek . I also wondered how I would get across the creek myself, as I was still in my Michelin Man Goes To Vladostock outfit and it is not an outfit that is made for jumping creek beds. It is an outfit for greeting dignitaries in outdoor dignitary greeting facilities and touring vast, unheated tractor factories – not so much for fording creeks.

She didn’t have a problem with the creek bed. She jumped it! and when she saw what she had done, she jumped it again! And again, and again and again. She was like a big furry pinball! She was like I did it! Let’s see if I can do it again! Oh! There I go up and over! Wow! This is the best thing ever! I wanna do it again! Oh I did it again! Oh one more time! Wow! Okay, three more times!

She was having a great time until she made one jump too many and fell into the creek. She couldn’t get out on her own, despite her very best efforts of valiantly trying to scramble up the higher- than- she- thought- bank. It was really sad, there she was chest deep in cold water and the poor baby could not get herself up and out. She tried really hard though. Broskey had to pull her out by her collar, which wasn’t fun for either one of them. We went home, she had a warm bath and it was still her best Sunday ever.