That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it. Normally this phase hits me in about July. It came late this year. Just one or two too many social things, including social with dogs, and it becomes that proverbial straw that broke the camel's back for me.
This photo was an experiment, taken Thursday morning, pre-sunrise with a flash. It shows Ember chewing on the playhouse ladder, while two tennis balls I attempted to distract her with lay on either side of her. We do try to play a bit of chase the ball, even before the sun comes up.
It's been a busy couple of days since the birthday dinner for DIL's mom. I had my personal trainer session on Thursday morning. Ember and I did a turn around the block on leash before I went to my workout.
Then in the afternoon, with naptimes somewhat skewed again on Thursday, I took Ember to the dog park for the first time "solo". We had gone a couple of times when we were coordinating with when my son and his wife were bringing Carl to the "big" dog park.
This time I took her to a smaller one, and we got very lucky. There was a nine-month old Rottweiler named Cora, and an 18-month-old Bernese Mountain dog named Neffie, and it was just the three musketeers (would you believe Ember is 8 months old now?) For the first 15 minutes or so, it was just them, and then a few more dogs showed up with their people.
Ember was not particularly happy with the thought of coming home, but someone who was just arriving with her dogs helped me lure her into my backseat, and home we came. She was tuckered out and went to bed easily.
Friday morning's leash walk ended in our own back yard with some off-leash time playing with Barnaby. Unfortunately, Bill (Barnaby's human) and I did not handle the entry very well, and Bill ended up on the ground when Barnaby took off with Ember in full flight. Bill was mostly unharmed, no broken bones or anything, and we sat in lawn chairs watching the canines cavort, but we're both already strategizing on a better way to enter the back yard. I think we need to insert Barnaby through the gate before letting Ember out through the back door... it was particularly hard this morning as they greeted one another on-leash at the sidewalk/driveway intersection before we tried to get them into the yard.
Human lessons learned. Bill had a bit of a scrape on his elbow, and I checked in via text later in the day to make sure he was washed up and patched up and OK. We'll do better next time. As Bill said, Barnaby needs to run like he does off leash with Ember. And I have this big backyard space, we may as well get the use out of it!
During Puppy nap #1 on Friday, I filled out my ballot for the November 5th election. When Ember got up from her nap, among other things we went for a ride in the car to go put that ballot in the election commissions drop box. I can now ignore the political ads for the remainder of election season. Did my civic duty. The ballot issues are worth watching in our state. I mean, we are unique... we have only one legislative house, the Senate. "The People's house", if you will, in Nebraska, is not a "house of representatives", it is the voters. And we take our role seriously. We the people of the State of Nebraska will decide by our votes if we want to fund private schools out of our tax dollars, if we want to de-criminalize medical marijuana, and if we will leave the issue of abortion between a woman and her medical providers.
Enough about politics... my favorite political sign is up the street. In red, white and blue, it simply says "Dogs / 2024".
I promised Ember that if we took that ride, we'd stop somewhere fun on the way home, and we did. We stopped at the park closest to the home where I grew up and got out to sniff at just about every tree in the place. The park has changed since I was a kid (obviously).
There is now a disc golf course in the park, a nice cushiony floored playground, and the drainage is now protected from children exploring it the way my brother and I did as kids.
The park was in good use while we were there, in the 11 a.m. to 12:30 time frame. A mom and her child on the playground. Several disc golf players. A couple picnicking at one of the tables. Someone sleeping on the wall at the edge of the playground. And a caretaker with her wheelchair-bound charge.
Ember got pets from a few of them, and in general behaved very well. At the end of our visit, I prevailed on one of the disc golfers to help me entice her back into the car.
The short trip home was too much for her little tummy. We got home to a seat-cover full of what used to inhabit her stomach. Poor baby. Got her inside and settled, then cleaned up the car. I pretty much let her nap outside the crate until suppertime. I fed her and tucked her into her crate. I came back upstairs, where I'm typing this out to let folks know, that Life is Still Good, here in Emberville, and to remind us to Keep Sparking!
