Bridgey Speaks

Leela has been following me around all day. I’m sure not what this is about. Normally she follows Dave around. He has an entourage in fact, as Mojo does this to him too. Both of them (Mojo and Leela) will wake from a dead sleep if he leaves the room and follow him wherever he’s going. I guess Dave hasn’t been moving around enough, because today I get the shadow.

Since the bigger of the two shadows has seemed restless this weekend, I figured we’d better go for a walk. She didn’t get one Friday or yesterday due to some ugly rain, so I figured today she needed a good hour hike around the neighborhood.

I suited her up with her back pack (she carries her own water and poop bags), her collar, and her leash. I suited myself up with sneakers and sunglasses, and we were off.

We got about 15 minutes into this walk on mostly level streets, and Leela started pulling toward the grass. Since she’d already completed all of her other walk business, I figured she was just angling to eat grass, so I encouraged her to move along. We had walking to do! I gave her some water, and we pressed on.

A few minutes later, she pulled toward the grass again, so I let her sniff around. She decided to lie down. Seriously? You get your first walk in three days and you want to lie down? Get up! Let’s go! So we did. But about five minutes later she plopped down right on the sidewalk outside the elementary school. I realized that it was quite hot out, so we just sat for a few minutes. We were on our way home anyway, so I took off her backpack, gave her more water, and we just sat there. After a few minutes, I got us going again, back toward home.

She couldn’t even make it the rest of the way. She insisted on another break in a random yard, so while giving her yet more water, I called Davey to pick us up. I was already carrying the backpack — there was no way I could carry a 55 pound dog even a few blocks home.

Not to worry though, she is fine. She had yet more water and ice cubes, and I even held an ice pack on her to make sure her body temp was coming down quickly enough. She’s still following me around the house, but while I’m sitting still, she’s sound asleep. Who knew a 30 minute walk could be so exhausting!

We took Leela to Sandcastle this weekend for Last Splash. Sandcastle is the local water park, and Last Splash is a fundraiser they do for the animal shelter Animal Friends at the end of the season. Right before they drain all the pools for the year, they let you bring you dog to swim. Big doggies (like Leela) get to romp in the wave pool (without waves).

I was very excited about this, and I had been looking forward to it for some time. I had been watching both the Sandcastle and Animal Friends websites for the date. Finally it was posted, plans were made, and money was paid.

Saturday I woke up early to take Leela for a long, brisk walk to tire her out. I was hoping this would encourage her to play well with the other dogs. Leela loves other dogs and generally does play well. However, she can be tireless and won’t leave other dogs alone when they are done playing. After the long walk, Dave ran her around the back yard. Dan showed up, and we took off.

We got there and set up a spot, and Dave walked Leela over to the water. It turns out, despite her surprise bolt into the river last year, that she is afraid of water. At least she was afraid of this pool in this situation. She also lacks the ability to doggie paddle or to understand that water is a fluid and not some platform unto which she can climb.

I think Dave worked as hard as she did to keep her afloat and out of harm’s way. She spent most of the time flailing about and panicking. I spent a lot of the time watching and taking photos (which Dave has, so bug him for them) and generally trying to stay out of the way.

While it was certainly an interesting experience and another good opportunity to let her hang out with other dogs, we probably won’t go again. In addition to us learning that she does not, in fact, like to swim, she managed to break four or five nails on her back paws down to the quick (read: lots of blood). Her feet were clearly a little sore for the rest of the day. There were tons of retriever and other water-loving dogs there who definitely were having a blast, so maybe next time we’ll just leave the pool to them. Over all though, it was a fun day and good learning experience, as well as a fun way to support a great cause.

This fact, or at least my belief in it, was the only reason I could come up with at 3:45 a.m. for not strangling him. Sigh. Now that it is normal daylight hours, I’ve come up with several more reasons. However, in the wee hours of the night, it was hard to come up with ANY good reason. I’ve heard of neurotic dogs, but he is by far the most neurotic creature I have ever encountered. Poor Mojey. I suppose it’s not his fault that not all the wires in his brain connect up the way they should.

I’m up a bit earlier than I’d hoped today, as the dog was insistent that one of us get up and take her out. I get that, but I just wish she could have waited one more hour. I got up because I had to be up today and Dave didn’t, so it only seemed fair. But I’m a teensy bit cranky about it because I was up in the middle of the night every night this week dealing with some situation (allergic reaction to crab, rain coming into the bedroom, various pet needs/wants). But I’ll just try to nap later perhaps. And, I am going to get a massage later this morning, so it’s all good at that point.

Anyway, blah blah blah, I wanted to share a couple of blogs I’ve started reading for a few of my friends who are highly organized. These friends inspire me to tap into my own organizational tendencies, so I thought they might enjoy these sites.

Unclutterer
Lifehacker

In addition, Real Simple offers emails on a variety of topics from recipes to house cleaning tips that I’ve found very handy. Please share your favorite sites too!

This past weekend was the last of five trips since the middle of June. Some were big trips (Boston, Arizona), and the others were small weekends away. This past weekend we went to Berkeley Spring to camp for one night — just Dave, Leela, and me — and to spend the rest of the weekend with Cindy and Matt (and celebrate Cindy’s birthday) and Kristan, Steve, and Violet. This was our first meeting with Violet, and she is a heart breaker. She is a super-cute, sweet, happy baby. Kristan and Steve make it all look easy, and I do believe with Violet, it IS easy. It’s at least easiER than for some folks. She was a delight to snuggle, make laugh, and just watch.

It was also a ton of fun to catch up with friends. I have been lucky to be able to do a lot of that in the last year or two, and it has felt really good. It’s never enough time with people you care about, but I’m still grateful for it. It was also so wonderful to see my friends in such happy places in their lives!

This weekend came quickly on the heels of a visit from my sister, niece, and nephew, who managed to sneak in a visit between my trip to Arizona and the Berkeley Springs weekend. They were here for an all-to-brief two and a half days, but it was also wonderful. We took the kids to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History to see the new, very cool dinosaur exhibit, and we spent a day at Sandcastle, the water park here in Pittsburgh. Tuesday turned out to be a perfect day to hit Sandcastle, as we didn’t have to wait in line at all and just rode water slides until we were completely exhausted. The rest of the weekend we spent relaxing and catching up. The kids and my sister are great!

Now I’m settling back in the house and giving the kitties some attention before I gear up for things to return to “normal” again tomorrow — whatever that means.