Puppy Tales

Today’s Numbers: Nancy's Total Movement Mileage: 847.1 (running: 667.2; walking: 34.5; biking: 144.8) Money Found For Food Bank: $77.09

2,015 in 2015 Change Hounds progress: Nancy: 847.1 Aaron: 556.3 (b: 490.6; w: 65.7)  Elly: 227.4 Total: 1631.2

This morning's run was bookended with dog stories. And, Elly was not front and center in either of them. In fact, she could not have cared less.

Story one took place right after hitting our first mile. Day was breaking, and we were happily trotting along when a little mop of a dog leapt out of its owner's parked convertible and took off after me and my pooch. The nice thing was that the dog was so small that we could outrun it with absolutely no effort. It's poor little legs tried oh-so-hard to catch us, but it just couldn't. It ran half a block at us while its owner kept calling to it. The statement, "Come back if you want a treat!" finally caught that dog's attention, and it ran back to its home base.

Seriously. Jumped right on out of that car. There was another dog in there, by the way. It didn't jump. It was probably looking at it's canine counterpart saying, "What, are you stupid?"

The second story was brought to me by Mile 3 when I saw two dogs and their owner hanging out ahead on the sidewalk where we were running. Clearly, owner and dogs were camped out for a morning of lingering and talking with friends, so it just made sense to me to get off the sidewalk and avoid the whole situation.

The dog owner did see us coming, and he pulled his dogs back (one on a leash, one not). I appreciated the effort (for real), but it was still too narrow a space to bother going through and potentially making a big bunch of doggie hubbub. As I veered to the street, the owner called out, "Oh, it's okay! They're friendly!" Forget that the smaller of the two was snarling and going nutty in a "Come close enough, and I'll rip your face off" kind of way.

I appreciate dog owners not only love their animals, but they want to paint the best picture of them. But, friendly to one does not mean friendly to all, especially when the new stranger has another dog. I am more a fan of let's keep strange dogs at a distance from each other and call it good.

Oooo! I call this good, too:

In the last 24 hours, people were all about throwing pennies everywhere. The Food Bank thanks them.

Our run was solid for us both ...

... which earned us a day to rest tomorrow! We'll be checking in ...