Yesterday early evening I took Katie to another metro park for a walk. You might remember that we went out to my favorite park last week and walked while watching ducks and geese and swans. That park is quite a distance from home, so this time we went to a closer park. It’s not as fun to walk in because it’s mostly just fields and woods, and it’s over a mile before you even get into the woods! The first mile is down a BIG hill beside a hilly field. So that means on the way back the last mile will be up a very big hill.

It was very windy at the park during our walk. Katie started out excited and eager to get going.

We headed down the hill with her sniffing along the edge of the bike path, checking out each blade of grass.  So we weren’t moving very fast.  Eventually I got her moving, though when I asked her to “heel!” she looked at me like I was nuts.  I totally forgot I was carrying chicken in a pouch.  That probably would have motivated her!

We stopped at a bench, and thinking of the picture of Josh on the park bench after his grooming appointment I tried to get her to sit on it.

She didn’t like the bench at all, and this picture was taken just before she leaped off and asked me what the heck I thought I was doing!  So we kept walking down the big hill.   On our last long walk in the park she walked 3/4 of a mile out and 3/4 of a mile back to the car.  So today I figured maybe we’d walk 1 mile out and 1 mile (up the big hill) back to the car.  She seemed pretty agreeable to that.  But at 9/10 of a mile (they have all the 10th’s marked off on the bike path) she sat down.  Period.  Wasn’t moving any further.  In any direction.  Great.  We talked about it for awhile.  I told her I couldn’t carry her 9/10 of a mile up a big hill.  So we rested a bit, then turned around.  She kept wanting to continue on the way we had been heading, but I wasn’t going to get us into any more trouble than we were already in.  We stopped at every park bench to rest, and she conned me into carrying her for a couple of short spurts.

I took pictures along the way as something to do while we were resting.

Then with 1/2 a mile to go I remembered the CHICKEN!  Oh yea.  CHICKEN!  I asked her to heel and showed her the chicken and guess what?  All of the sudden she was full of energy!  She trotted next to me like a perfect dog.  Like the dogs I had seen walking with their people the way dogs are supposed to walk!  She heeled almost perfectly the whole 1/2 mile back to the car.  Even after I stopped giving her treats.

We got back to the car, she drank a little bit of water and we headed home where she fell asleep for the rest of the evening.   I need to carry water and some sort of container with me when we go for walks this long.  And remember not to lengthen our walks by too much too fast.  Just like any athlete, she can get injured if we do too much too soon.  Gotta think of her as my athlete in the family.  Certainly isn’t me anymore!