Water dog yoink

Kris, Andy and I took the boys and girls to Water Dog Lake in Belmont today. Kris and I had been talking about the hike to Andy, as it both is short and has water for his dogs to play in. Andy wanted a short excursion today, so off we went, the four dogs and three people in my new purse.

When we arrived, Andy looked at the trail marker sign and immediately laughed. Confused, we asked what was so funny. He pointed to the trail sign and said, "It really is called Water Dog Lake. I figured that was your name for it."

Something like Ft. Fun Town! no doubt.

We went up to the lake, which was low, but not the lowest we'd ever seen the lake, and around it.

Twice.

The dogs weren't tired yet after two. We ended up losing Annie somewhere on the second loop, but Kris didn't seem very worried. Both Annie and Bella and wandered off, but Kris kept hiking along the trail. "They know who feeds them. They'll come back," he said, and kept hiking. Bella seemed to realize we were moving away from her, and came running off as I was becoming worried about them.

Annie didn't.

We finished the second loop, and waited around. Bella eventually found the entrance to another trail, and started to go up it. I followed her to see what she would do. To my surprise, she walked along the trail to the top of the hill, paused, sniffed, looked around, and turned around to walk back down the trail back to the lake. I followed, amazed, pleased and humoured at Bella's human-like behaviour.

As Andy threw a ball into the water for Blue to fetch, and Shadow debated the merits of jumping in the lake in an attempt to capture one of the ducks on the water, Kris waited for Annie to return.

Kris and Andy never seem to be as impatient with the dogs as I am, so off I went to find Annie. Again. It seems like I'm always tromping off to find that dog, and it annoys me every time I have to go to find her. One of these times, I'm just going to leave her, and then won't Kris be less willing to let her off leash.

Eventually, I did find her running along the top of a ridge, clearly having a good time and not at all looking like she was going to be done any time soon. I bribed her to come down the hill with a treat (always carry treats with which to bribe your dogs or throw at some attacking bear), leashed her up and nearly dragged her back to the lake loop trail head.

Near the end of the trail, there's a trashcan. As Annie exited the trail, she burst into a run and went bounding off to where Kris and Andy were standing, talking. When I saw her start to run, I took off, running as quickly as I could after her, lest she yank my arm off when the leash ran out.

What I wasn't counting on was the trashcan.

Or rather, the hook on the bottom of the trash can.

Annie rounded the can quickly in her dash to say hello to Kris. I also rounded the can quickly, and only barely realized the leash was behind me as I passed the can before the two of us hit the respective ends of the now taut leash.

"GAH!" was my only word as my arm jerked back, my legs still going forward. I'm not sure if I heard a simultaneous "AROO?" from Annie as she stopped at the same time. I flipped up, but managed to catch myself before crashing into the ground.

I imagine I looked like Kris when he yoinked on the sleds.

The walk back was easy, with the whole hike being thankfully easy enough for Andy's knees. With the water and the girls running off-leash, we had a few pleasantly tired doggies this afternoon.