The Book of Ramblings

For the past couple days I've taken Dahlia for a long walk around the pond in our nearby park. I didn't intend to take the long walk around the pond either day but it was so enjoyable spending time with her that I decided to keep going. Both days she's met several dogs. Yesterday she met a golden retriever a woman had adopted only in September. She played nicely with the dog, though the woman who owned her was nervous about Dahlia's odd "growly" thing she does when she plays. She tends to open her mouth wide and make this weird noise when playing. I tried to reassure her that she was just playing, but the woman clearly doesn't get dogs. Ah well. She also met a lab mix who looked a lot like her only a little bit bigger. Except he's only 7 months old and his legs were much wider and his paws were HUGE. Nice dog though. And she met another border collie mix who was really sweet. Today she met a miniature poodle named Maxine who was really sweet. Her owner, Steve, and his daughter were really nice. The young girl (probably all og 6 or 7) offered Dahlia some water and was smitten with her spotted tongue. Steve was wearing an Obama button. Yay! We also met an overweight border collie who was fairly friendly. And we met a 15-year-old Sheltie. As we were getting near the dog, the woman said she was old and sweet if we wanted to meet. They met and Dahlia was fine with her. The woman noted that her funny crouching behaviour when she goes to meet a dog is a characteristic of herding breeds. I figure she's pretty correct about that.

At any rate, today I went down with my camera. I took some pictures of the foliage but also took a bunch of pictures of Dahlia. I let her off leash down in the field and made her sit and wait while I walked several feet away. I managed to get 20-30 feet away from her while she sat and wait. I was most impressed! I got a lot of photos of her sitting and waiting and some as she ran back to me when I released her.

So...

Pictures...

( Dahlia and pretty leaves! )