We’re back in Bend again….and thus have a little more time to do things like create posts. The day after Nix and I got here, my little brother Russy (who has cancer) had enough energy to go sit by the water and take the dogs out. I got a few great action shots of Nix with my dad throwing a water toy (and using an iphone — yeah for iphones).
Well, the Nix and I have returned from Bend. Nix did a number of fabulous things:
She was in her first parade ever (see previous post)
She weathered the fourth of July fireworks with no fuss at all, even after my silly little brother let off a firecracker near here.
She snuggled up with Russ at night from time to time, which is very soothing. Good for her. Maybe she knows he needs soothing (he is mid-stream in chemotherapy).
She swam in the waters of Lake Cultus.
She saw her boyfriend Buddy on the way back.
Sometimes, being a dog seems attractive.
Well, here we are in Bend. The two goldens are together again (Nixie and Odin, my brother’s dog). Dad and mom and me and Russy and the dogs walking in the Pets on Parade parade through town. That’s Nix on the left with Dad, Russy with Odin, and Mom on the right. The streets were full both of dogs and other assorted and sundry examples of the animal kindgdom and of people lining the sides of the road. Now, we do a similar parade in Kirkland, WA, where I work, but there is a regular parade with officials and bands and fire trucks and all that afterward. In Bend? The pets were enough to draw out thousands of people.
It felt a lot like the fourth of July here. Like middle-America, un-bothered America, an America where there weren’t necessarily a lot of politics on parade with us. Just a quiet celebration of animals, community, and the America of all the cliche’s and dreams, of simple people getting along and having fun and celebrating together.
But still, ingenious America. One of the more interesting parade entries was the flying dog. Really. Here he is:
Nixie is going to Bend, Oregon. Mind you, I’m going to. But it’s a moment of contemplation as we are, right now, all three dogs and all three people at home. That will only happen again one day before Nix heads to Bend with me to to see Odin and his boy Russell.
We promise at least two posts so the border collies will be able to look us up and see how it’s going.
We had three walks today.
The first one was while waiting for our hotel room. It’s was one of those windy spring days when the pink ornamental flowering-trees shed leaves in great gouts, and Nix looked quiet petit and pretty surrounded by pink flowers.
The second walk was longer – when we went out with two work friends of mine (one from Bellingham and Bellevue) and wandered around. No pictures from then – I was busy talking.
Later, Nix and I went out alone again after the big social dinner. I can only be so social after all. I took her out on the dock, which she was quiet unsure about.
Here she is creeping along the dock. In pure golden fashion, she went. She smiled, but she crept. We will go out on the dock again tomorrow and try to get her more used to it.
That’s the Columbia River behind her (we are in Richland, WA).
And after all that walking (plus a few shorter walks on breaks), the Nix was quite glad when it turned out that I was going to stay in the room. Here she is looking exactly like she looks at this moment:
There really is almost nothing better than hanging with your dog.
Cricket was off in training and Toni was off with family, leaving just me, the Sasha, and the Nix. That meant walking two at a time (for who can leave one dog home alone? Oh – the faces!). This should be easy enough. We’ve even been to class on walking two dogs at once. But no – Sasha is afraid of a lot, and she seems to be more afraid when she’s yoked to Nix. So after two long walks when I thought I might get my arm pulled from my socket, we settled for trips to the dog park.
They developed a new trick. Sasha focuses on the ball. Of course she does – she’s a border collie. So when I say focus, I mean FOCUS. Well, it’s a dog park. It’s acres and acres, but there are literally hundreds of dogs some times. Dogs like balls. So this week, whenever a dog dove for Sasha, Nixie blocked them. Every time. It was hysterical. Nixie – of note – does not care about the ball. But she does care about Sasha.
But now Cricket is back (as of yesterday) and Toni is back (as of today) so Nix and I snuck out and walked all the way to Redmond Town Center and Toni picked us up so we didn’t have to walk back.
Pretty good life, all in all.
There’s something quite special about walking with a dog. Nix needs to go out, so that gets me out of the house whether I think I need it or not (I do need to be outside, of course). She’s always happy to be out. In fact she’s always happy, no matter what. But she’s definitely always happy to be outside, walking by my side, tail up and swinging side to side gently, head up. She doesn’t want much. Just my company. I’m her person and she’s my dog and the relationship is simple and easy and happy. For her, almost all things are interesting. Of course – she lives inside the walls of the house almost all the time. That’s 23 hours day inside of about a 500 square foot place (with occasional access to the rest of the house when we’re home), with occasional visits to the back yard all day, but seldom for long. Unlike me, the busy and harassed and needed and questioned and dead-lined and worried and hurried. So me the walk is a chance to relax, for her it may be a chance to get some stimulation. However it works, it’s magic.
Today, we walked up part of Bridle Crest Trial and along 140th to Grass Lawn Park and back up 148th – this picture is along the gravel trail in Grass Lawn Park.
I watch this movie every season, but somehow managed to miss it this year:>( Not to anyone elses dismay, I might add:>) So in the spirit of not losing sight of traditions, I did manage to see the summary version today! Featuring Cricket, Sasha, Nixie, Brenda and Katie. Splendid remake, if I do say so myself.
It turns out Nixie is quite an aggressive 5K dog. She looks a bit like Eeyore in that picture, but don’t be fooled. She was my training buddy when I was doing half marathon walks (and hopefully will be again) but this is the first event I’ve taken her to. Now, I have to start by explaining the Turkey Trot. Trot is NOT the right word. The first half a mile is, at best, a turkey shuffle. After that, you get to walk. If you behave and stay on the sidewalk the whole time like they want you to, you walk at the speed of whoever you get behind.
Luckily, there aren’t enough course proctors to make you behave. Nix pulled and pulled and pulled. She wanted to be in FRONT. Not that she was going to get there with me, but we did pass a hundred or so people. Even in the rain there were at least two or three hundred people walking – all ages, all abilities, and maybe thirty dogs. Really. Lots of dogs. Great dogs. I think there were six goldens.
As a side comment, they should have closed the street for the whole thing. It would have been far more fun, and then people could have stretched into their normal speeds and kids could have brought bikes and all kinds of things. It’s only an hour, and there is another parallel street, so shame on us (I work for the city, although not in events) for not closing the street down all the way.
Meantime, Toni was watching agility on the computer so we came home and watched the finals. Lovely well-trained dogs and people.