One of the reasons that I got a big dog is that I love to walk. I could walk all day. My old dog, Snickers, could not. I would do one lap around a block with him, drop him off, and then head out for my real walk.
Zuzu loves to walk. And walking with Zuzu is always an adventure.
As she has gotten older, her walking style has changed over and over again, but as soon as I think that the adventures are over, she proves me wrong.
For a little while, during the cold, she began to walk as if she was in a daydream. She was so slow, just plodding along, looking at the sky, like she was an eighty year old woman. I remember thinking two things: one, I am never going to get any real exercise ever again and two, it's freakin' COLD, dog, come ON!
Then, it started to get warm and the birds came. She went back to prancing and looking around everywhere and sniffing and jumping and the leash became a sling shot once again.
One day, Darby and I thought it would be fun if she walked her to the bus stop to meet her friends. Darby has started taking a later bus down the other end of the street, so Tressa had already gone to the early bus five minutes prior, and Darby and I headed out to her bus. Zuzu loved it! She was so happy meeting the kids! As more children began to show up, she seemed to be getting a little too exited, so I took her and we crossed the street, just before the bus started driving down the road. When Zu saw the bus, she panicked. I think she is truly convinced that the big yellow school bus eats all of the kids every morning. She tried so hard to run away! It was big and loud and so so scary!
She calmed down once the bus pulled away, but we'll wait a bit before we try that again.
Our next big adventure was today. I have no idea what got into her. Both girls took the later bus this morning, so Zuzu watched them walk away and cried and cried. I waited until I was sure the bus would be gone, then we headed out on our walk. She would NOT behave. She wanted to race in the direction that the girls had walked. She would pull on her leash and leap forward, and I would tell her no and make her sit. Then, when I said, "Heel", she would leap forward again and try to run. I turned her around to walk the other way and when she seemed calm I would turn back around and she would, again, leap and try to run. This went on for a few minutes and I just couldn't get her to walk normally.
We went home and we were sitting on the front porch as I was trying to get my keys out of my pocket when I realized that giving up would not get us anywhere. It was not like I could explain to her that her time-out and missing her walk was due to her behavior. Nope. Bringing her in would just leave both of us frustrated, and I didn't really want a giant, temper-tantrum having dog locked in my house.
So, we went back out. Slowly. We struggled all of the way to the bus stop. Sit. Heel. Backwards. Sit. Heel. SIT! HEEL! Good girl. NO! SIT!!!!
Deep breath.
Amazingly, when she saw that there were no children and there was no bus on the corner, she calmed down a little. (No crap, dog! It took us thirty minutes to get here; the kids are probably already sitting in their first period class, trying not to fall asleep.)
She did great down the first street until she saw the cutest little poodle puppy. I have to admit, even I wanted to play with the poodle puppy, but not today. We kept walking, but she went back to bounding and wagging and wiggling as we said hi from across the street. Then as we walked away, she bent herself into a U shape so that she could walk forward, but still look back at the puppy. She almost ran smack into three mailboxes. It might have been animal cruelty, but I was totally going to let her run into each and every one of them, but she managed to turn around just in time.
After that, the walk turned amazing. I was cold, so I put my hands in my coat pockets, still holding onto the leash in both hands. She walked right next to me, with the leash loose, the rest of the way. If she got in front or behind me, she self corrected. When I stopped at an intersection, she slowed right down with me and sat beside me. It was so cool! I felt like I was out for a stroll and my trusty wolf was by my side, just because she chose to be.
Did I mention that I love walking?
