A day better than expected

Every once in a while, days turn out differently than we expected at the start. When it’s a better than expected day, it can be pretty great. Like yesterday, for example.

Yesterday ended up being a good day because of lots of unusual things. I caught up with my cousin-in-law, which is unusual because of all the plague and winter illnesses (on top of ordinary busy-ness) have meant the family hasn’t had much chance to get together over the past few months.

Next, I looked through some boxes of my own stuff, packed away for years, to look for something I need for the Super-Secret Project. Didn’t find that, but found lots of personal treasures I thought were lost in the sands of time. I was surprised, but also happy to find those things, relics of my life from decades ago.

I made my awesome dinner, fed Leo, and that was followed by the most unusual thing of all: I took Leo for a little walk.

The back story is that walking three dogs alone was impossible, but Jake was arthritic and couldn’t go on walks, Sunny always pulled on the lead (then her health started to fail), and Leo couldn’t walk far, so I always ended up having to carry him home. Plus, I have a large fenced yard and the dogs could run around as much as they wanted to, though Leo was the only one who actually ran.

On top of that, I’ve had that ongoing issue with often deep fatigue, so I wasn’t up to walks. Leo and I play The Chase Game all the time, though: He has me chase him around the house, sometimes he chases me, and he clearly loves it. He especially likes it because he gets far better grip on the carpet than he gets outside, and he can change directions quickly (important for the game). I haven’t been up to playing the game with him as much or for as long as I was last year, and I’m pretty sure the medication I was changed to late last year is the culprit (a few days ago, I talked about the new medication I hope will help this problem, and that starts in about two weeks).

So, why a walk last night? The neighbours over the back fence were having a small party, sitting outside in their covered area (I presume they have some sort of patio heater…), and Leo does NOT like people on the other side of his fence! If they’re talking and laughing, he hates it even more. Just before dark, I had to go outside because he was barking at them through the fence, and then I had to make him walk back into the house. He just kind of glared at me when I gave him a verbal command, so I had to herd him into the house. I knew he’d run right back there if I let him out into the yard, and that’s something I always do after he eats his dinner.

So, the only solution was to take him for a walk. Thing is, Nigel and I only walked him once or twice, and I haven’t since I’ve been in this house, so he doesn’t quite get the concept: He never sniffed the spots other dogs had visited, and he never, um, emptied his tanks (which was the whole point).

We walked down to the end of the street, and then someone from the area walked their dog toward us a young (>2 years?) black Lab sort of dog who was on lead, of course, but a little rambunctious (I wasn’t sure whether the guy had complete control). I picked Leo up, and he was NOT happy about that: He did his high-pitched bark/whine thing, which seemed to echo; I was a bit worried that neighbours might think he was hurt.

I carried him part of the way back to our house, and he squirmed. I put him back down (I still hoped he might empty his tanks…), but he wanted to go find that other dog, and I was afraid be might wriggle out of his harness (he’s done that before), and I’d have no hope of catching him if he did that.

I picked him up again, walked a bit further uphill toward home, and put him down again. We got to our house, but he wanted to keep going. I walked him onto our front lawn (which he again never sniffed), and still wasn’t keen on going back inside. I, however, had reached the end of my energy reserves.

The walk was short, but apparently enough to tire him out: He usually plays with his toys in the evening, but yesterday evening he mostly slept. In the end, he didn’t wee in the house, and preventing that was the whole reason I took him on that short walk. Maybe he was too tired?

We were lucky that it wasn’t raining at the time (it’s been raining a lot in recent days), but we’d have been luckier if I’d had the stamina to walk him farther/longer. Hopefully one day we’ll both get to have longer walks. But last night, we got a little one. And Leo got to have his very own good and unusual thing his day, too.

Sometimes, unusual things can make a day turn out better than expected. Yesterday was just another example of that.