Adventures in Dogwalking

Kina is an incredibly curious dog. She loves to smell things and will often plant herself at an interesting branch of patch of grass while I'm pulling on her leash trying to get her to continue our walk. We've managed to work out a bit of a system that seems to keep both of us happy. Kina will run out ahead of me as far as her leash extends. Then she finds something interesting to smell and stops. I amble along past her until the leash catches again. Then Kina's off and running ahead of me again until she finds the next interesting thing to smell. This doesn't work as well when we're on a path that Kina's unfamiliar with. But when we're going over worn ground, she's more willing to keep walking.

Kina hates staying on the path. She's usually off in the trees. If we're walking on a sidewalk, she's in the grass next to the sidewalk. This mostly works. But when we come across a tree or a sign, I have to either pull her back to the path or leave the path and walk around the same way as her to avoid getting her leash caught. Last night I made the mistake of calling her and following her. So Kina came running back to me and started following me around the tree. We walked around in circles a couple of times, with me looking like a fool, before I managed to get everything straightened out.

Kina's a pretty big dog (75 pounds) which has gotten a few comments. I wasn't too surprised when the little girl said "Big doggie!" and made sure to stay out of our way. I was surprised when a grown man reacted the same way. Kina's big, but she's not mean or poorly behaved or anything. She doesn't even bark. But people are still scared of her.

It turns out that the only reason Kina hasn't chased Onyx is that Onyx hasn't run away from her. Kina's pretty content to approach cautiously and just sniff when Onyx is sitting there. But I've found that she has a penchant for chasing things that run. I've had to hold her off what seems like every cat in the neighborhood and a few small dogs at this point. She still seems pretty uninterested in squirrels, though. Perhaps because they're so small.

For some reason, Kina has yet to poop while on a walk with Kevin. But she makes sure to go every time I take her for a walk. You'd think this would mean I've gotten used to picking it up, but that's not the case yet. Yesterday as I was leaning down with the bag, Kina saw something and took off. She managed to tear the leash out of my hands and I had to go running after her across the park. Then I had to drag her back so I could pick up the poo. I really hope that doesn't happen again. On the bright side, I can catch up to her across short distances. Or maybe she just slowed down because I was shouting at her.

I got to experience my first rainy dog walk. It actually has me not looking forward to winter for the first time in my life. But hopefully Kina won't like the cold as much as she seemed to like the wet. She was having a ball running through puddles and pulling me off the paved path so we could tromp through the swampy grass. My pants were soaked almost up to my knees by the time we got home. Thankfully, at this point Kina proved what a good dog she can be. I told her to stay in the kitchen while I ran upstairs to get a bath towel. She refrained from attempting to follow me or even shaking herself off and I was able to dry her completely before releasing her into the rest of the house. Now I just need to teach her to stay after she's pooped.