The Dog Wrangler

Today I got off work early, which is a great start to a weekend. Jeff was home too so we decided to do a little running around and we ended up at Target where we ran into our friend Courtney.

Courtney basically rocks. She just completed a triathlon last weekend and she'd doing a 5K in a few weeks and then a half marathon later in the fall. So you could say that as Jeff and I plod along in our Couch to 5K training schedule, she's kind of our hero.

One of the things we talked about was the possibility of us taking Autumn (the energetic dog) out with us when we run. We decided that it would be a good idea for us to wait until we were more in shape and feeling more confident in our athletic abilities to start taking her with us, because she's kind of a handful.

Apparently, we also suffer from short term memory loss.

Because as soon as we got home, we decided to go running and to take Autumn with us.

What is wrong with us?

So we went inside, changed clothes, got the dog, and headed out. We drove down to Kelly Drive to run because there is a path along the river and it's really pretty and there are other runners out there.

But it was a new place for Autumn and she was super excited. There was just so much new stimulation and she would not calm down. Plus there were geese to chase. And green goose crap to eat. And oh my gosh why did we think this was going to be a good idea?

Jeff and I took turns wrangling Autumn as we ran and it was awful. I mean, we are clearly not skilled runners, but we also have this dog that wants to chase birds and eat poop and not run in a straight line very calmly at our sides. So we're having to keep from tripping on her and keep her from running other people off the path and keep her from eating poop WHICH WAS EVERYWHERE, and we just looked like the biggest oafs out there. Jeff wanted to throw her in the river. I wanted to throw myself in the river.

Eventually, she started to calm down a bit and did better at the end, but the damage was done. I had pulled a muscle in my chest and Jeff was in a bad mood.

Next run - no dog.