The New-Dog-Exercise-Plan

While we have not, thankfully, had a repeat of that nearly-murderous night, we are still working out kinks in this whole sleeping at night thing. It tends to work best when she's had a full, tiring day. Then she crashes and is dead to the world for hours at a time.

Even before getting Sherman, I knew that a dog would get me out of the house and moving about more. However, I hadn't quite realized to what extent this would be true. These past couple of days my mindset has changed. It's not longer a matter of taking the dog for a stroll to the park, it's a matter of doing all I possibly can to wear her out during the day so I can sleep during the night.

This morning was cool and overcast, so I leaped on the opportunity to take the beast on a three-mile constitutional down by the river. This afternoon I had to pick up my check from the bar, so I packed her in the car and took her along, with a detour to walk the river walk a bit (a different place than where we were this morning in a whole other part of town). Then she got to meet Dave, Debbie, Laura and one of our regulars, all of whom offered the appropriate amount of oohing and ahhing to my wildly-excited-to-make-new-friends dog. Seriously, she's a spaz when it comes to new people, her tail goes all a blur and the rest of her body wiggles madly with the force of it.

Which is funny, because on our first walk along the river she was in a different state of mind altogether. Each time someone would approach, she'd basically get defensive and bark at them with her hackles raised. So, each time someone would approach, I'd make her sit and pet her as the jogger, walker, bicyclist, etc. went by. She caught on fast to this and now instead of wanting to warn off passersby she now desperately wants to make friends with them, especially if said passersby utter anything resembling "Oh, look at the cute doggie." It's impressive how wildly she can squirm and wag her tail when she hears that adoring tone of voice.

Right, digression over. Back to this whole wearing her out thing. Now, anyone who knows this sort of thing will tell you that one big advantage human physiology has over a four-legged construction is that, by virtue of walking on fewer appendages, it takes less energy for us to propel ourselves. Thus, while a cheatah can certainly beat us in a sprint, we can always beat a cheatah at walking. So, the relevance is that my dog gets tired faster than I do, which means we can take longer walks, which means I can get her even more tired, while not wearing myself out. Ah, biology is fun.

Currently, I'm playing the pest and doing what I can to disallow her the opportunity to sleep. Payback's a, well, you figure out the pun.