Out and About

Marge had a good day today and I think she got exactly what she needed: some exercise and some interaction with new people and new dogs.

We hit up the park today for the first time in a long time. I felt like walking rather than standing around, freezing my ass off in a 100x100' empty dog run. So we hiked and ran and explored instead.

Marge is unfazed by joggers, people walking, just about anyone, so long as she's in the park. Street walking in the neighborhood is another story and she's usually more fearful. The other day at the beach she was very uncomfortable with someone walking towards her and actually barked a bit. To her credit, they had a big scary furry hood on their heads - and they may have been gesturing to her, I'm not sure. But, regardless, it was good to see men and women whizzing by her today without her being fazed much.

She made friends with a Flatcoat and two other little dogs. That was also good, seeing as the aforementioned dog run has done little lately to socialize her in that area. For once, the dogs were actually POLITE --- no crazy jumping and wiggling and scaring the bejeezers out of Marge. Very refreshing. And beautiful dogs, too. I don't think I've ever personally met a FCR.

The owners of these dogs tipped us off to a nice area that I might check out where Marge can be offleash, but FENCED in a HUGE field! That is exactly what we need. Even though her recall is reliable, all she needs is something to spook her bad enough and that'll be it. So I need to have some sort of backup.

We went hiking up the steep parts of the park, where Marge got to jump over fallen trees (see below!) and stand curiously listening to the sounds of various birds. She also tried her luck with some other birds - ducks - and decided a little bit of water on her paws wasn't so scary. Some Labrador.