Running and playing and doing and being

I’m going to try an experiment with Dogger at the Dog Park tonight. I am going to wander around in hopes that she will wander around. See, I really, really don’t want to take her for a formal walk. It’s hot and I’ve had a long week and I just don’t want to physically walk on a walk with her. If I take her to the park, I can sit with the other owners and we’ll all try to persuade our dogs to “go run and play” – while not running or playing ourselves.

I need to run and play.

People who don’t sit where the people, are kind of looked at. in a not entirely open and loving way. The other night there was a couple there with some fancy long haired floppy looking dog that appeared to be a standard poodle. It wasn’t. It was some Italian breed – it didn’t matter because their people were sitting on a table a long way away and we couldn’t ask about their dogs - the main thing we talk about between wondering aloud where our dogs are and pleading with them to go run and play. The Italian dog people appeared unsocial and working on social skills is the main reason you go to the dog park in the first place.

Dogger needs to run around more though. We went last night after her vet visit and before she ate dinner and she at least worked the room a little more than she does when we go post walk, post dinner park going. Maybe she just isn’t into running around on a full stomach – but I defiantly think that she needs me to be up and around for her to be up and around. Last night I made an effort to throw a ball for her but she really didn’t have much interest in it. She watched me throw it and got a little excited and she made an attempted to propel herself in the direction it went but once it landed she decided she wasn’t really all that interested in it and really once it hit the ground it was kind of anti-climatic and she didn’t go after it. She thought about it though – I think she thought that she would get pet more if she went back to where the people were. You may get applauded for good fetching but you don’t get pet for it. Dogger is very tactile.

There ain’t no attention whore like a four legged attention whore.

The other dogs will makes passes through the seating area just to check in and make sure their people are still there, but mostly they wander around or play chase with the other dogs or go eat something they found on the ground or go roll in something (not everybody is a consciences dog stuff picker up) or they go see what some other dog is interested in – but Dogger just kind of stays where she’s planted.

I think my plan is going to end up being a quick walk to the post office, then home. Then dinner (for her), then a MASH rerun or two (for me) and then to the park. I think by that time she will have rested up from her walk and maybe had time to recover from dinner sufficiently enough to want to go run and play with the other dogs – but when I think of it, that is kind of what we have been doing and it’s not working vis-a vie Dogger running and playing. Maybe what I’ll do is watch some MASH, take Dogger to the park, take a few laps with Dogger around the perimeter and then go sit with the other folks and try to cajole Dogger into running and playing some more.