Monday, June 14, 2010

Unacceptable Walking Behavior

I love my walks. They are one of the few things Sarah does well. So, it pretty much goes without saying that she would find a way to screw them up and make my life worse.

In the morning, Sarah is too lazy to get out of bed early enough to give me a long walk, so we take a short one. Now, normally I would complain about this, but on my morning walk, I get to see two of my favorite people, both of whom give me treats. So, that's awesome. And then I get to play with several other dogs while Sarah chats with people, which is also cool. In the afternoon, I get a long walk, which is quite nice, actually.

However, things weren't always so nice. You see, back when I was a younger pup, I attended puppy training classes. I was awesome at these classes, except I really hated doing one thing: walking on my leash properly (you know, without pulling Sarah).

The joys of pulling Sarah along behind me are many. For example, if it's muddy, she might slip and fall. Her arm hurts from all my pulling, which is a at least a little bit of punishment for the horrible things she does to me. Plus, we end up getting where we're going faster, as if Sarah had her druthers, we'd go at snail speed. BORING.

Sarah did not appreciate all this pulling, so she asked my puppy trainer what to do. The puppy trainer gave her this special harness for me. It was very, very NOT COOL because it was (a) pink, and (b) perfect for making me have to walk without pulling Sarah. Anyway, as long as the harness was part of my life, my walks were not fun. I like pulling Sarah around!

Obviously, I needed to do something about this harness. So, one day at day care, the owner left my harness hanging up where I could reach it. I promptly got it off of its hook and chewed it all up! That's right, $25 of Sarah's money, gone! And me, I got to go back to pulling Sarah.

Without the harness, Sarah quickly tired of this pulling, and purchased another harness. Stupidly, Sarah let me sit in the backseat of the car, and left the harness on me. And you know what? I chewed that one up as well! And the best part? Sarah saw what I had done, and decided that, having spent $50 on harnesses, she wasn't about to purchase another one for me, as I chew them up as soon as I can. She figured that a little arm hurt was worth saving $25.

This state of life without a harness lasted over a year. However, last week we were in the park, and I saw a squirrel and lunged for it. In the process, Sarah fell over. Like, flat on the ground. That part? HILARIOUS.

Not so hilarious? Our trip to the store that very same night to pick up a new harness.

This? This is me in my third harness, contemplating methods to open the drawer where Sarah keeps it so I can destroy yet another $25 of Sarah's hard-earned money.

While Sarah falling over on my account was great, the harness is horrible. I have to walk right next to Sarah all the time, even though the last thing I want is for people to think I'm her dog. I have to walk at snail speed. And dog harnesses are seriously not cool with the dogs in the park. So humiliating.

Still, so long as I can destroy it pretty soon, definitely worth seeing Sarah fall on her butt.

2 comments:

  1. Choppy, you should be nice to Sarah. She feeds you and loves you....and if you had to feed yourself by chasing squirrels, you would probably starve to death.
    Grandma

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  2. I don't know - I think that if I could chase the squirrels in the manner I wanted, I could start catching them. The other day, I saw 10 of them from the front porch. Those are pretty good odds.

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