You think I'm kidding? Exaggerating, maybe? Au contraire. My groomer thinks he is too. Lucky for me it is the good kind of mentally ill. Oh, there is a good kind, make no mistake. Anyway, the virtues of my mentally ill canine are for another time. What happened today, however, shocked me.
Max is an Australian Shepherd, as I mentioned. These are working dogs that love to run and play and have fun. Despite his mental illness, Max likes these things too. Normally, I get the leash out and it is all I can do to calm him down enough to get the darn thing on his collar. Today, not so much. So, we get out the door and head to the woods. Max LOVES the woods. Lots to pee on in the woods. TONS to pee on in the woods. He is happiest when he is peeing on things so the woods are Disneyland. When we are in the woods, he is off leash. He pees, then catches up. (He may be fat but he is still and Aussie and can run faster than spit in a tornado.) This works fine and I can run as fast as I want and know that he will not be far behind.
Today, for whatever reason, he decides that running through the woods isn't his thing. From the get-go he wasn't keeping up. But I ran on, called him, and he came. We saw some people in the woods and he wouldn't go past them. Sigh, there's that mental illness I was talking about. We get past that huge obstacle in his psyche and head out again. Get to our first creek crossing and he won't cross. Finally, after squatting down and making that sickly sweet baby voice you use when you really want your dog to behave, he came. I put him on leash and he ran right next to me the rest of the run. Slowed me down in the woods cuz the trail is really on person wide but other than that, didn't really resist running. It was weird! I had never seen Max act that way about going for a run before. He is normally so enthusiastic.
Maybe he remembered the other day when, at the end of the run, he was wheezing and hacking far worse than I was. I did say he was fat, right? I can't always take him with me on my runs so he doesn't get the exercise he needs, but we are working on that. I love having him with me on my runs and hope that we don't have a repeat of today. I love having him running through the woods ahead of me or behind me, off leash, just the two fat guys in the family out pounding it out.
Only picture I had on my laptop but that's Max!
I highly recommend taking a dog along with you on a run. Especially if you can let them off leash to run with you in the woods!
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