A trio of walks

I laid around Sunday morning eating everything in sight, so I knew I had to get out for a walk in the afternoon. I also needed to take multiple dogs, including some that I can't walk together. Emmylou, Molly, and Cabell are the only three that have been able to establish a functioning collective brain when walking together, so instead I took 3 walks, each about 40 minutes, with three solitary dogs.

Lyka was the first up and she was excited to go. I pretty much just let her drag me, figuring that she gets more exercise that way and besides, I started out stiff and slow so I was glad for the assist. We encountered a pair of deer on the trail, quite close actually, but I don't think she was even aware. Lyka doesn't seem to see anything more than a couple inches from her nose and she isn't particularly attuned to wildlife anyway.

We had had sleet the night before, so the ground was cold and wet with a raw, wintry feeling in the air. Good walking weather. I didn't get much in the way of a photograph because she would never stop moving, even when we stopped walking. When she finally laid down, she started eating grass and I managed to get the one non-blurry photo shown here.

Brady was my second walking partner. I did not let him drag me because Brady really needed the walk as a training session more than anything else. He gets plenty of exercise around here playing and wrestling with the big dogs. (You can see how dirty he was from playing with Chance, Lyka, Bear, and Jeep before we left.) What Brady needed from the walk was to learn some respect for human leadership. I put the pinch collar on him and kept him in "heel" position for the entire walk, correcting him whenever he would try to lead. He did quite well really.

You can see Brady's attitude all over him. That tail is carried up high over his back and tightly curled. He sits and looks at you with a very "I'm a big dog" attitude. He mixes it up at home with dogs three times his size, proving that it's the size of the ego that matters most. He will show respect, but you have to demand it. He's very full of himself. Brady will be a good dog, but he needs work.

The Brady walk started out dry but it was spitting a snow, rain, sleet combo by the time we got back. I purposely left Emmylou to last, thinking that I might be inclined to poop out and decide against the third walk, but knowing that I couldn't and wouldn't disappoint her by not going.

It was snowing pretty good the entire walk, but Emmy didn't mind and I didn't either. We had the trails to ourselves of course, which always disappoints Emmy, but we tried one new route and she enjoyed that, although she gave me that "this is the wrong way" look when I encouraged her to head down that trail. Emmylou knows the entire trail system, probably better than I do, and she always knows if we take a non-standard route. Shepherds are very orderly creatures and they are not keen on change.

We crossed the footbridge that Emmy had balked at once before and she hesitated again, but went on across without needing much urging. I don't know what it is about that bridge that she dislikes all of a sudden. It's not really an essential part of our walk and we can avoid it by going another way, so that may be what we do from now on.