Challenge 19: Don't do anything that feels like work

January 31, 2010

Today is a beautifully sunny day here in Oakland, California. It was another relaxed/lazy morning. We slept in til 10, leisurely drank tea and ate breakfast, and Vaughn is in front of the TV watching West Wing. His favorite thing to do in the mornings, lately.

I had a really wonderful day yesterday. I set out to go on an off-leash hike with Coach, which I was pretty scared of doing, and which I had put off for the whole 3 months we've had him. I didn't trust that he wouldn't run away, and I didn't trust that I wouldn't lose him. But I decided to go for it. Put all my trust in him that he's a great dog and that he'd always find his way back to me. I am so happy about great dane meet-up group I joined because they are showing us all these great dane friendly things to do. This particular hike up by Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve, was one of those things. So I was familiar enough with the trail. I knew it was dog friendly. So I decided to go for it. I threw the dog in the car, grabbed some towels (to clean him off after we were done), grabbed my galoshes (it had rained, so I assumed would be muddy...and I was right!), and set out for this adventure. The sky was blue, the air was crisp and fresh and the hike smelled of wood chips and trees. I unclipped his leash and told him that I was trusting him to come back to me and that he was a good dog.

He galloped and ran and panted and basically jumped up and down with joy. He ran off in all directions, but kept a close eye on me, and would always come awkwardly running back to me if I whistled or called his name. He made some friends with some other dogs on the trail, and had a face off with a giant cow! As we approached the end of the hike, I started to become nervous that I wasn't going to be able to get him to come back to me enough to put the leash on. We got closer and closer to the parking lot and he was still over 20 feet in front of me. I called to him, but no response. I decided that trying to get him, following after him, was only going to make him run farther away from me. So as he went through the open gate into the parking lot, I decided that I was just going to ignore him and walk towards the car, and decided that he was going to follow me to the car. And guess what?! He did. With ease. So I put him back on the leash, cleaned off all the mud, and put him back into the car. I was so proud of us.

Later in the day, after he had napped off his hike, Vaughn came home and we decided to test out the DMV parking lot for a skating rink. He put on his new roller blades, and I grabbed my skates and we did loops around the lot. And who knew that that was such a hot thing to do on a Saturday night?! There were 5 total skaters in the lot. 2 younger kids that Vaughn was getting roller blading tips from, and one older man who was putting us all to shame by doing skating tricks. He looked like a dolphin in the water, smooth and graceful. Coach still isn't ready to pull us on the skates, but I wouldn't say that's a bad thing.
Later in the night, we went out to the city for Nick Lamb's 30th birthday, the theme...formal. Tons of friends, tons of laughs, and tons of amazing outfits later, we came home to a calm and tuckered out puppy dog.

All around wonderful day.

Today we have some fun things in store. There is a great dane meetup at a dog park in Bernal Heights in the city and then we plan to take over a dog friendly bar/establishment a few blocks down the road. It's so nice to have some free time with both Vaughn and I in town. I'm really looking forward to it.

So my challenge for the day is to not do anything that feels like work. Just have fun. Just enjoy the day.

Challenge 19: Don't do anything that feels like work

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