Hey, I’m testing my older readers here. Do you remember that old ABC sports saying? “Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports… the thrill of victory… and the agony of defeat… ”
No doubt if you read this blog, you’ve read your share of our agony of defeat. Besides failing to learn to turn on/off a light switch, you may remember the post where we failed miserably trying to get past two dogs on our walk.
Hey! You’re not the only one getting up 15 minutes early.
Ever since that humiliating day, I’ve gotten up 15 minutes earlier during the week in an attempt to avoid a similar situation.
Until Sunday morning, this meant we were walking in the dark.
To set the scene…I dress appropriately for the weather, attach my treat bag (that has room for unused poop bags), grab my camera (why I don’t know because it’s dark out), my pepper blaster and my cell phone. I throw on my reflective vest and a ball cap that has a light on the visor.
The dogs are wearing harnesses and the reflective collars they wear have little lights attached to them. Yeah, you can see us coming. LOL
Up until last Friday, we hadn’t encountered a single dog.
So I’m just about to the same spot where the chariot-less chariot incident took place and I see what looks to be a flashlight shining at me. The road I’m on is intersected by my street so it’s some distance away but across from me.
Gif courtesy of Giphy.com source Reddit
I stare trying to determine if it’s someone walking or I’m just catching a streetlight in just the right way but I keep walking.
At some point I realize it is in fact someone walking and upon closer inspection I realize it’s the lady that keeps her two little yappie dogs on retractable leashes. Now listen, I’m not a fan of retractable leashes, and this lady totally exemplifies WHY I don’t like them. She never reins her dogs in, she just lets them zigzag all over the road barking their fool heads off.
Shit.
So I stop the dogs, and double clip their harnesses. Up until now I’ve only had them clipped on the back, but I reach down and clip them both on the front as well, so they are each on 3 foot (estimate) leashes.
Sampson is on my left side and Delilah is on my right, which is absolutely perfect, because believe it or not, in this situation the D-Dog IS the better behaved dog.
I reached down into my treat bag and pulled out a hunk of beef lung. What I really love about the big pieces of lung is I have to break them up and in the process of doing this, both my dogs are riveted upon me. But I don’t start breaking it up just yet, instead I cup the lung in my hand and shove my hand right in front of Delilah’s face.
In my high-pitched-you’d-think-I-was-talking-to-a-baby voice I say, “Watch me puppies! Follow me puppies” and I start walking as fast as I can to the corner. I don’t look at what the other woman is doing I just focus on talking to the dogs and putting one foot in front of the other without tripping because both dogs are as excited as hell.
I whip around the corner and am now on my street. Delilah is frantically licking at the lung in my hand, while Sampson keeps looking behind him trying to see the other dogs in the dark.
BUT we had already turned the corner before he started to resist so I switched hands and shoved the lung into HIS face and in a matter of seconds the threat was past.
I gave Sampson the whole chunk of lung and pulled another one out my bag for the D-Dog, because really, she was star. If she’d been behaving like Sampson, I would once again be sharing the agony of defeat instead of the thrill of victory.
She’s the star? You’re saying, SHE’s the star? Look at how nicely I’m walking.
All your hard is paying off with them, that’s a victory for sure. And yes….I remember that show too.
I am SO VERY PROUD of all of you! You for diverting D-Dog’s attention from the road ahead to your treat-filled hand, D-Dog for paying attention to Mama, and Sampson for containing his excitement long enough to get past the threat.
And I hate those damn flexi leashes, too! I had one for Kissy, but she was always well-behaved on a walk. She usually stuck close to me, but when she wanted a little freedom to sniff something in the grass, she would come right back to me with just a calm “here girl”. But they’d never have worked with Callie, Shadow, or Ducky. They are all too strong – they’d pull the handle right out of my hands if they wanted to get at something.
PS. I just barely remember that show, but only because we didn’t watch/play sports in/at my house when my brother and I were growing up. Dad grew up a Brooklyn Dodgers fan and when his team moved out to LA, it about broke his heart. I don’t think he went to another baseball game after that until Sam and I took him to a Greenville Braves game. (Atlanta’s AA minor league team, which moved to MS several years ago.)
Yes, I remember that show, great reference!!
Yay for your victory!! Your hard work definitely is paying off, congrats to all of you!
Mom says this is just more proof, training one dog is a snap, but if you have more than one to train at the same time, it is really tough and almost impossible. Glad you managed to stay upright this time around.
Victory is sweet!
You should buy yourself a trophy.
I remember the agony of defeat ended painfully in the snow.
Yay!! Awesome!! Walking in the dark is a whole different ball game, lol. With the time change we are not taking our nightly walk in the dark and yesterday was the first time so I feel ya. There was a dog in front of us that we didn’t see but Cocoa surely did and she goes into “I need to go play with that dog right now lets go come on hurry” mode!! In the daylight I can see what I need to prepare her for, lol.
Congrats 🙂 I love the victory of catching the threat before it’s even on your dog’s radar!
Great timing! It’s the early catch that matters, and you caught it. I love a happy ending. Although an ending with you being dragged down the street on your butt was fun, too.
Well done all!
(Was there a time in your life when you would have hesitated to have a hand full of lung – fascinating the things we do for our dogs that we might not otherwise try 🙂 )
I am glad you had a victory. Good job Delilah! I am not a fan of the flexileads for walking. They are great if you are airing a dog but not for walking and people give too much lead with them.
I am doing a victory dance for you!
Yeah!!! What a great walk, hopefully many more in the future! Great feeling.
If you lived near a nuclear power plant, maybe you could grow a couple extra arms so you could distract both dogs at the same time, plus keep hold of their leashes, etc. That is way too much drama during a walk for me – I don’t think my heart could take it.
Awesome timing, and way to go Delilah. I know they’re not “our” roads but I’d be pretty pissed if I was out walking that early only to encounter someone else with yippy dogs on retractable leashes. Oy. But what can you do? You handled it awesomely, and I’m so proud of D Dog 🙂
That’s great! Hooray for victory! (And I do remember that saying – it was at the beginning of the “Wide World of Sports” wasn’t it?? And they’d show that skier wiping out every time they said “agony of defeat.”) Anyway… I can manage to have similar victories if I manage to get the cheese out in time. And, yes, I shove it in Rita’s face too! But if a dog comes on us too quick, and is snarky at her, well, then it’s that skier wiping out all over again…