The next few entries may well appear in a rag tag kind of order, it's merely artistic licence rather than my inability to recall events in a coordinated order.
Park Life
The following is a mainly pictorial record of how a recent day's exercise went with Barley, Briggsy's dog.
Things of note:
Barley is a girl.
Barley likes finding Tennis balls.
Barley likes finding anything that can then be thrown for her.
Barley likes swimming.
Barley likes digging.
Barley whimpers if she's not doing one of the above.
Inactivity is not an option.
My mission objective was - WEAR THE PUPPY OUT.
The day started rather ominously. Upon arrival at the park the clouds were low and dark and hinted at rain threatening later. Fortunately we both had our coats on.
First off, there was some tennis ball chucking, for about twenty minutes the ball flew across the large open space only to be brought back within 20 seconds, for me throw again. I began to realise that this was not going to be as easy as I had foolishly hoped.
Next we headed for water.
I say we, in actual fact on one of my last throws, Barley opted to return the ball via the nearby lake.
And so began the episode we shall refer to as chucking the ball in the water.
* NB * by now my left arm was two thirds longer than my right, and Barley looked like this -
Next we headed for water.
I say we, in actual fact on one of my last throws, Barley opted to return the ball via the nearby lake.
And so began the episode we shall refer to as chucking the ball in the water.
* NB * by now my left arm was two thirds longer than my right, and Barley looked like this -
After almost a half hours worth of swimming we returned to the car. At this point it should be noted that Barley was looking a tad panicky. At the start of the morning I had promised her a full workout, and as we headed back towards the car park I noticed Barley began to trail behind.
How her face re-energised when I swapped the tennis ball for my bicycle.
* A point of note for any new dog owners * this does not mean I then threw my bicycle for Barley to collect. That would be fool hardy and dangerous, plus I don't believe Barley would be able to negotiate the racing gear levers without any opposable thumbs making hill climbs very difficult.
We began with earnest, to circumnavigate the perimeter of the park, deviating from our route only when the path cut back into the park or when I couldn't physically lift my bicycle over anymore small wooden railings.
Sometimes we sprinted, sometimes we travelled at a rather more sedate speed, and on a couple of occasions one of us kept watch for joggers while the other went for a wee in the leaves near big oak trees.
As we began to turn back towards the car park area of the park, we stopped for some more ball throwing within a large copse of trees that provided some shelter from the now bitterly cold wind. Whilst there Barley opted to dig -
So engrossed were we in our digging, Barley with her paws and me with my bucket and spade, I almost failed to notice a Stag and doe nearby that had wandered over to see what was causing such a flurry of mud and grass tufts to scatter into the air.
This Stag was called John and had interests in ornithology, the Catholic Church between the 17th and 18th century and eating grass roots.
The weather seemed to have cleared and the only suggestion of what was to come was the howling wind that was beginning to push menacing clouds across the sky towards the park.
The following photo took about 27 attempts, the other 26 consist of a tree stump and a flash of white paw jumping out of shot -
A Stormy Exit
It was shortly after this photo that the weather decided to end our day outside.
The clouds over head stopped moving past quite so quickly and the wind dropped to a light breeze. There followed a moment when both Barley and I paused to look up at the sky.
There then began light rain which very swiftly escalated to heavy rain and climaxed in a downfall of monsoon proportions.
So heavy was the downpour that on our route back to the car, Barley was running ahead to sit in the dried brown bracken either side of the path to shelter from the rain. Until I neared her position at which time she would run ahead again to find another suitable port from the storm.
By the time we got back to the car, the car park was empty.
I opened the door for Barley and in she hopped. I ran round to my side and opened my door, only to have a small pug dog jump in and sit down in the driver’s seat.
Bemused I scanned the park for a dog walker as drenched as me.
From the cover of a nearby tree, there emerged a very apologetic lady calling out the name Archie. The pug dog hesitated before jumping from the protection of my car, before scampering off towards it’s owner.
I climbed in and squelched down onto my now soaked chair and we sat in the car both shivering and sopping wet awaiting the welcome heat of the cars blower heater things.
Upon our return home, we both washed and then dried ourselves with the hair dryer. Taking turns to comb each others hair to get the twigs, leaves and mud out.
At the end of the day I believe I achieved my aim, albeit at the cost of my own energy as well.
We were both cream crackered and slept very well that night.
