Spike and Peanut's Big Day Out

Whew! It's been a weekend full of exciting Dog Outings. New experiences and adventures galore.

As I mentioned earlier, TJ is gone all day both days this weekend for a motorcycle track day. He gets to put on all his gear and ride his bike as fast as he can in the controlled environment of the racetrack. (Which is better than doing it on the street, not that he's that stupid.)

So I'm home alone with dogs. Yesterday we woke up early, at 5:45am when TJ left for the track and the dogs snoozed in the kitchen while I put away more wedding gifts (yay George Foreman grill! yay new flatware!) and cleared out the box/styrofoam peanut explosion from the front entryway. I also did dishes and laundry - very wifely and industrious. :) Then Spike and I picked up the drycleaning. He *hates* being left in the car when I run errands, and tried to escape a couple of times when I opened the car door. I'm hoping it's something he'll get used to.

After that, we drove to Seattle to see Nisha, the florist who is doing the wedding stuff. I really like Nisha and her ideas are different and beautiful. Fortunately for me, she is an artist and I can just tell her the color scheme for the wedding and she'll run with it. I'm really looking forward to what she comes up with. Nisha was nice enough to put her dog, Violet, in her van, so that Spike could run around the shop while we were there. That kept Spike occupied, except for the occasional whining.

Then we went over to Genesee Park, somewhere in South Seattle, for a Beagle play date organize by Seattle Beagle Rescue. The off-leash area at Genesee is just a large fenced-off field, but the nice part is that it's completely sealed off so dogs can't escape. I think Spike likes Marymoor better since it's more interesting to wander around the trails and do his smelling and rummaging. Genesee is more for dogs who like to play with other dogs. Peanut would have loved it as there were many games of "jump on your head" and "bitechu" going on. Adrianne, a woman I know from Caltech UAS stuff, and her husband brought their beagle Bartleby and their other dog Sadie. Sadly, Spike wasn't interested in playing with either of them. Even more disappointing was the lack of beagles who attended the play date. The highest beagle concentration at that park was 4, including Spike and Bartleby. After an hour of Spike rummaging around and half-heartedly playing fetch, we decided to leave.

Spike and I had a lunch date at Stan's Fish and Chips, a take-out stand we saw on the way to the park. Spike got a whole kid's hamburger with no bun to himself. He ate it in about 2 bites, then proceeded to whine until I gave him some of my chicken strips and fries. That's a beagle for you.

Clearly this outing was exhausting for Spike, so he sprawled out in the backseat on the long ride home.

When we got home, Tasha, our friendly neighborhood Visla puppy, was waiting outside our garage. So I called her into the garage and closed the garage door before opening the car door to let Spike out. Well, Spike is fast, and the garage door hadn't closed all the way so he shot out the door and ran across the street with Tasha chasing him. He knew I was trying to catch him so he ran like a beagle. Now Spike is never allowed to run around the neighborhood because I think he'd get lost and he's just not that smart about cars, so I was freaking out. Tasha's family lives down the street, so I went to see if Spike had followed Tasha home. We looked in the field behind their house and there was Spike, rummaging around. He seemed happy to see me, and came when I called him. I think he did feel a little bit lost. After collecting Spike, I let Peanut back into the house and we all took a nice 2 hour dog nap. Tiring day for all dogs!

Today was a good day for a Peanut adventure. I felt bad that he didn't get to go anywhere yesterday, so instead of going to the gym (any excuse, really), I decided to take Peanut on a walk to Crossroads Mall, about 3 miles away. The weather was gorgeous and Peanut hasn't gotten any exercise for a couple of days now. So off we went. I took some water with me so we had a couple of water stops along the way. The steroid medication Peanut is taking makes him thirsty so I was a little worried about that today. But we had 3 or 4 water breaks and he was fine. Thanks to TJ's patient training when Peanut was a puppy, he is great on-leash. Not a lot of pulling and he even knows the command "heel". Such an easy dog to deal with.

It took us about an hour to get to Crossroads, and the lady at Michael's said he could come in while I returned the extra wedding stuff I bought. So nice! Peanut just flopped on the cool tile floor and hung out during the transaction. He did drool on the floor a little, which I felt a little bad about, but really, he behaved so well! Then we went to Starbucks to relax and get some lunch. I attached Peanut to the patio fence and put him in a down-stay and left him some water. He's pretty good with Stay, but I wasn't sure he'd actually stay once I was out of sight. I went to get a drink and a sandwich at Starbucks, and was gone for about 5 minutes. When I came back outside, Peanut was exactly where I had left him. Fabulous. This dog is awesome. (Another reason I'm glad to be marrying TJ.) In return for such good behavior, he got some turkey from my sandwich (don't tell the vet).

It was about a 3 hour round trip by the time we got back home (lots of smelling along the way) but a lot of fun. I got some exercise, Peanut got some exercise and some leash practice, and maybe we even improved the reputation of big dogs for a few people we saw today. A fun time was had by all.