September 22, 2007. It has been a busy week for me. Nothing really out of the ordinary, but I have had lots of play and cuddle time with Tom. Every morning we have gone to the park for a run and almost every day I have met a new dog and had some run time. It has been great!
One day during the week we arrived at the park and found a man and a woman and their two dogs. Their names were Sadie and Onyx. They really wanted to play with me and me with them. When our respective owners said it was ok, off we went. We took turns and chased each other around the park. We each would grab my ball and run while the other two chased.
We wrestled and romped and just had a great time. Sadie is the same age as me (18 month) and she is a Doberman. Onyx is only a year old and he is a Staffordshire terrier. I think that is like a pit-bull, but he was really friendly and he and I had a great time rough-housing and just being guys together. Sadie was a little bit more subdued in the wrestling department, she liked to run better.
All too soon it was over and they had to go. It only lasted fifteen minutes but it was a great time and I hope to see them again soon. The best part was that when their owners called them and they headed off to their car, Tom called me and I fell into step beside him and we headed on to our usual play area.
On this day there were lots of distractions for me as well. Three separate motorcycles went past on the street when I was close to it and three times I listened to Tom and left them alone. Another time a guy rode a bicycle right across the park in front of me and again I left it alone. Every fiber of my being wanted to chase it, but I refrained and stayed with Tom.
Later in the day, Tom dug all his hockey gear out of storage and got it all ready for the upcoming season which starts for him next week. We loaded his gear in the truck and headed out and I thought we were going to Burnaby Lake, but we turned off before there and went to the hockey arena. Tom went and did a warm-up skate and I guarded the truck for him.
On Friday we went for a ride in the truck over to North Vancouver. Tom was signing up for a second set of guitar lessons, so he will be going twice a week now for awhile. It seemed funny to come over here by ourselves because Renee usually comes with us. We have done it before, but not very often.
Renee didn’t arrive as usual yesterday though, because she is sick and was lying in bed with a bad cold. I miss her, but I made up for it by cuddling up as close to Tom as I could get. It was raining too, so I spent most of the day inside doing just that. We did go to the park and I did get pretty wet, but it was still fun.
Today, Tom and I went over to the park to play. It was a little unusual because on a Saturday, Renee is usually here and we usually go for a long walk around Burnaby Lake. Not today though. When we got there, two of the Chicken Wing Dancers broke away from their group and came to stand next to the fence no more than twenty feet away from us.
They didn’t do their usual exercises, just stood there. I thought that meant that Tom would stop playtime, but not today. He decided that they could see that I was off-leash and if they wanted to stand there, then so be it. We continued playing. I did a really good job of ignoring them too and stayed focused on chasing my ball.
In a little while another lady arrived with her dog. His name is Cedar and he is a Heinz 57 variety. She let him come and play with me and we both chased each other around the park. He seems to have some sheep dog in him as well because he kept trying to herd me, while I kept trying to herd him. It was a great morning, especially since it had stopped raining and the sun was coming through.
It finally got so windy though that Tom would throw the ball and it would not go very far. He started throwing the ball along the fence for me and it did go farther but one time the wind caught the ball and made it curl over the fence. I could see it there, but I knew I wasn’t allowed to go outside the fence without Tom. He walked over, went out of the fence and got the ball and I sat patiently by the gate and waited for him. He was very happy about that. Another breakthrough in my training.
Well, the surprises keep coming. Here I thought we were going to be missing Renee all weekend and late this afternoon, guess who arrived. It was Renee, sniffly nose and all. Once she got here we went for a little outing to Still Creek and who did we see there? It was Yoko and Fran, our next-door-neighbours and they were in the process of setting up a string of paper Japanese lanterns along the creek. This was in honour of tonight’s Moon Festival, marking the summer solstice.
After a walk around there, we headed over to Burnaby Lake to do our usual walk. The unusual part was that it was the latest in the day we have ever done it. Usually we go in the morning, today it was late afternoon. We did our usual distance and once we got to our turn-around point we saw a fat little mouse sitting by the trail. He didn’t move, even when I almost stepped on him.
Then there were two gorgeous black horses right in front of us. When they had passed there were two more horses, but they were a beautiful chestnut colour. Once they had all passed we continued on the path on the way back. Suddenly, Renee pulled me to a stop and pointed an animal out on the trail ahead.
Who would have believed it? After 4 summers at the lake and being worried about bears and cougars, but never seeing one there, what do you think was on the path? Here we were in the middle of the city of Burnaby and there right on a well used and very busy pathway was a cougar. I kid you not, a real live mountain lion in the middle of Burnaby Lake park.
Well, you want to bet that the rest of the walk was just a little more than a bit nerve wracking. We were looking over our shoulders the whole way. Tom phoned the RCMP who phoned Conservation officers to report the sighting. We finally made it back to the truck safely and breathed a huge sigh of relief. What an adventure!
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