Bringing up Bailey

 Friday:

Bailey and I went out on a solo training walk. It was threatening to rain so we didn't do much training and just tried to get our two miles in. It started to rain on us for the last half mile so we picked up the pace, took a shortcut, and came in just a hair under the two mile mark. Then we went to Lowe's to get mums for Berta's patio for her birthday. Bailey got introduced to walking with me as I pushed a cart. That didn't bother her. She saw some more holiday atrocities, but ignored them and walked on by. We spent some time in the hardware aisle and she got bored enough that she laid down.

Saturday morning:

I put Bailey out in Daneland with Dodger and Sherlock and I took Paisley and Elvis for the morning walk instead. The park was packed with soccer kids, moms, dads, and their cars going up and down the road, so we went into the woods to get away from it all. We had a good walk and I more than made up the distance that I was short from Friday's rainy walk. 

Saturday afternoon:

Our first stop was the Strut Your Mutt event put on by Caring for Creatures at Stonefields. It was a Halloween costume contest for dogs but Bailey didn't have one. We walked around to get her used to a crowd of people and strangely dressed up dogs. We saw a couple of friends who fed Bailey treats so it was a very positive experience. I was so busy watching and handling Bailey that I got no pictures!

Our second stop was a brand new brewery in Charlottesville called Superfly Brewing Co. It had just opened the day before. They only had two beers on tap at this point but they were good and they were dog friendly. More people fed Bailey treats (this will be the theme for the rest of the day).

Our third stop was Högwaller Brewing. We sat out back in their beer garden. More beer, great food, and as you might have guessed, more treats for Bailey.

Fourth stop, third brewery, was Decipher Brewing. Bailey had been here once before when the place was packed. Today was a better sized crowd. I pushed a handful of treats onto anyone who approached us and they would feed them to Bailey. I think we made good progress on overcoming Bailey's  fear of strangers today.

Saturday evening:

Cosmo's owners got back home late in the afternoon. We were coming back to town for the evening so we brought Cosmo back to his home, and Bailey met his people. Cosmo was very happy to be home. Then we stopped and picked up some dessert items and went to Berta's place. Clay's brother has been in town since Thursday. We saw them for a while and they met Bailey.

It was a very social day for all of us and we came home and went to bed early, exhausted from trying to be nice.

This stuffed toy kangaroo resides in a corner of the hallway on Berta's floor at the Colonnades.

They dress it up according to the reason. It's being a pirate for Halloween.

Bailey didn't like the kangaroo and it had no treats to give her,

so we had a hard time getting passed it.

The moving elevator didn't bother her at all once we were passed the scary pirate kangaroo.

Sunday morning:

This was the first day since Della's dental work that she expressed an interest in going on our usual morning walk. We all had breakfast and she went back upstairs, but she came down a little later, noticed I was wearing my walking shoes and said that she wanted to go. Della and Bailey and I went for a walk. We did three miles this morning, mostly in the woods, which are beautiful this time of year.