Bailey at Patch

I got a couple of small pre-spring garden things done this weekend. I divided by lotus flower plant that was extremely pot bound, so now I have two pots in two separate ponds, giving both some new soil and room to grow. I'm hoping to have more vigorous plants and more blooms out of them this year. I also got all four of my pond pumps running and at least partially cleaned out the ponds. Thanks to the mild winter, some of the water plants that I didn't expect to winter over have done so and are spouting new growth. 

Sunday was St. Patrick's Day so I took Bailey up to Patch to try their new Irish red ale, Company 24. It was excellent, in fact I think it's my current favorite local brew. Sunday was a beautiful day and there was a big crowd at Patch, including quite a few friends. She was initially rather overwhelmed. There were dogs and people everywhere, balls and discs were flying around, the wind was blowing scents all over, but she handled it well and settled down nicely. 

She was great with all the dogs and people she met, but she also demonstrated her commitment to me. At one point she crawled under a table and I dropped her leash and took a couple of steps away. When she realized that I was no longer attached to her and had moved, she came scurrying back to be with me. I'm not too proud to admit that I'm emotionally needy enough that this makes me very happy. I suspect she knows this about me too. She frequently puts her paw on me and that just makes me melt into a big pile of mush. Gigi did that to me years ago when I had her at an adoption event. We left that event shortly thereafter and I never took her to another one. She was mine, or I was hers, whatever.

When Bailey is meeting new people I always hand them treats to hand to her to make sure they get off to a good start. One man walked by us later in the afternoon that Bailey immediately barked at, fur up and everything. I don't know what set it off. He may have been making eye contact with her as he approached. He was coming from behind me so I didn't see him but she did. He was an older man wearing a hat. I reined her in when she barked so nothing came of it, but it was a reminder that this dog has some protective instincts. I'm usually inclined to trust a dog's instinctive dislike for a particular human, but if she has a particular trigger, I need to figure it out.

Ah, the flexibility of youth.