Go Away World!!

You know those days when you wish the whole world would go away and leave you alone with your dog?  Well, I was having one of those days when I took Chance for a walk.  I was in no mood to "train," I just wanted to walk out my frustrations of the day.  Our walks are usually pretty quiet, but tonight we started out an hour earlier than normal as daylight is getting shorter now.  So I was completely caught off guard when the rest of the neighborhood was out and about disrupting my entire vision of running away from the world with  Chance by my side.     

Here's was our "adventure.":

A turkey on the edge of the woods that drove Chance crazy and we weren't even to the corner of the road.  As the turkey flew off, he had to sit for some time trying to settle down from the thoughts of a giant drumstick dinner.  While I was patiently waiting, two small girls on bikes with their mom went by, which Chance surprising paid no attention to, probably because he had his eyes on the two tiny dogs walking toward him with their owner.  He couldn't tear his eyes away no matter what I did.  My choices:  It was the little dogs or the fresh turkey smells.  So in order to salvage what little control I had, I turned him into the woods, where he focused back on the turkey's lingering scent.  We sat in the woods for what seemed an endless amount of time, before I could get him to walk without dragging me through the woods.  Ah, but dear friends our adventures weren't over yet.  Out of the woods and back down the road, right where the turkey took flight, Chance got pretty crazy in that spot, and so back and forth we walk past the spot, then we headed in the opposite direction.  Only to come across the two little girls and their mom on bikes...which actually turned out to be the highlight of the whole crazy night.  Chance was relaxed and walked right by them, I gave him some treats to emphasize how great he was doing and he passed without looking like a crazy lunatic dog as their wheels spun by.  On top of that, we had missed the tiny dogs coming back.  Wow!  Now we are getting somewhere! So I decided to take him through his favorite field to end the night before going home.  Ah, but our walk wasn't quite over yet, a loose six month old puppy with his owner and no recall.  Really?  At that point I gave up, turned around and headed back down the road, where we experience the turkey essence once again and finally turned the corner down our road to go home.

I sat with Chance who hung his head in my lap.  I don't think that was the walk he was looking for either.  After a long pause and signs of twilight began to cascade the sky, I laced up Blaze and we jogged up and down the streets without a soul in sight.  FINALLY, the world melted away and I had a walk alone with the dogs!