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.

The Night I Almost Murdered My New Dog

The first two nights with Sherman proved painless. She crashed early and slept the night through. I think the excitement of new people and a new place, combined with the exercise of walks (which were new, exciting, and multiple) wore her out sufficiently to make her a sound sleeper. Foolishly, I thought, "Okay, she'll be easy at night."

Yesterday we mostly hung around the house and she took a couple of naps during the day and afternoon. I thought little of this. Then, last night I thought I'd head to bed early since I was still a bit tired from Friday night. Eleven thirty, she's got her front paws on my bed, nudging at me. We go out to the backyard to let her go to the bathroom.

One o'clock, I am awakened by dog paws on the bed and dog tongue on my face. Once again, to the back yard. There's a party in the house across the alley that's still going on. Sherman feels the need to bark the laughter coming through the window, which means I have to call her over to me and make her sit down while I pet her (this, I've found, is the best way of shutting her up).
One thirty, she decides it'd be fun to climb in bed with me. (I've decided to enforce a no dogs on furniture policy, so this requires addressing)

Four o'clock, she has to go outside again. By now I'm calling her some not-so-nice names and telling her that I've changed my mind and don't really want a dog after all.

Five o'clock-ish, front paws on the bed, she looks at me with her tail wagging. I look back at her and mutter something about strangulation. I look out the window, it's starting to get light. For a reason I've not yet figured out, when it's dark at night she barks lots, so I hesitate to leave her outside. However, all things considered, I figure it's close enough to daylight. I take her and her food/water dishes outside, leave them there, and sleep for four straight, dog-free hours. When I wake up after them, I decide I will not, after all, murder her.

This afternoon, while I'm working on the computer and drinking cappucino because I need the caffeine, she takes a series of naps. It would seem that being up all night made her tired.

I'm not sure exactly what made her so restless last night. I wonder if it was being mostly inside during the day, the excitement of all the noises coming from the neighbor's party, or simply that she drank too much water before bed. All I know is that we have a bit of adjustment to work on, because sleeping for only an hour or two at a time makes me cranky. Very cranky.

Around four thirty today, I packed her in the car and drove to city park so we could walk to the nature center. We walked a solid three miles, our longest walk to date. Her tongue was lolling out and she'd stopped pulling excitedly on the leash by the time we finished our first mile.

I will sleep soundly tonight, I think.

I'm On Flickr

I've got my first batch of photos up on flickr. To see them, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/ali_nebula/

Fun With Frozen Things

After a couple of days of mostly staying home, and since it was a decent temperature outside, I took a walk today. I brought my camera because I've gotten in the habit of always bringing it when I go for a walk, and because I figured I'd best take advantage of the snow.











Still, my priority was to go for a walk, not to take pictures. When I got home and hooked up the camera, my computer told me I had 150 pictures. A couple were from a few days ago when I had a huge icicle hanging off the gutter, but most were just today. Oh well, so much for a photo-light walk.

I love this bird's nest shot.










Once I hit the Nature Center I walked out on the pier (?) type thing that juts out over the river. The way the snow melted and ran off on the wood planing makes for an interesting pattern.













By far, one of the highlights was when I walked over to the river by the dam where some of the slow-moving water was frozen over. Around some of the rocks there were very cool fractal-like formations in the ice. As a bonus, I even got mud all over my shoes! Worth it, though. Definitely worth it.

Other Wildlife

Early Fall Walk: Bugs

There are a few spots where the trail splits, and today I went right instead of left. I'd never been that way before and felt like seeing what I could see.

When the trail was being built, the concrete didn't stay pristine, so you can find imprints along the path.

As it turns out, it was also a good day for bug sighting.

Took a Walk the Other Day

Oh digital camera, how I love thee. The other day it was nice and spring-like, so I went on down and took a walk by the river. I came home with about seventy pictures. Pictures are fun. So is picture editing software.