Walking Rocky

I took the car out this morning and determined that the "good long walk" I've been taking Rocky on nearly every morning is about 1.8 miles. I'd been hoping that it was closer to 3 miles. I'm going to have to see if I can walk it faster. I've been getting through it in a little less than an hour. I'm really slowing down by the time we get back. Rocky at least has been enjoying these walks, lots of interesting smells and all that. I often wonder what a dog's perception of the world is like. What sort of information is he getting with all those sniffs?

The other day we were walking by a corner house that usually has three good sized dogs in its yard. They all started barking at Rocky, of course. The fence was close enough to the street that I let Rocky go over and exchange sniffs through it. That made everyone happy. I'm pretty sure that most of the dogs that bark at us as we go by are really nice friendly dogs, that don't mean much by it. Greeting us, and letting us know that if we try to get into the house, we'll have to go by them.

Back at that corner house, after the dogs greeted each other through the fence, we kept walking. All of a sudden, though, one of the three dogs came running up to us. Came running up to me, actually. I didn't see how he got out of the yard. He was very friendly, and I rubbed his ears. I don't know what it was, but from the way his ears felt, I could tell that he really was still a puppy.

Now, of course, I had a problem. This friendly pup would probably follow us home if we kept going. I tried knocking on the front door a few times, but no one answered. I checked his collar tags, but there was no phone number on them. I did find out that his name was "Chase", though. That seemed appropriate. After dithering around there for a few more minutes, I walked down the other street, to see if the house had another door by that driveway. It did, and I knocked. After a moment someone opened the door, and stuck her head around the edge of it. I could only see the eyes and forehead. I explained that the dog had come out to greet us, and I was afraid that he'd follow us home. So she called the dog in, and shut the door.

I thought I'd try to avoid walking by that house for a while, to not give Chase any more temptation, but I forgot after a couple of days. However, every time we've gone by that house since, there haven't been any dogs in the yard. They must not be letting the dogs out until later. I did see a couple of girls heading out to the school bus one day when I was running late, though.