Organic Dog Candy

We have a new favorite place to walk Angus and Baxter which has great open areas, a nice paved walkway and lots of trees and bushes for the boys to explore, sniff and of course, pee on.  Technically they aren’t supposed to be off-leash but it’s such a great place for dogs to BE off-leash that we brazenly ignore the big sign with the dog walking sedately on-leash and let them off anyway. 

We’re always watching closely so when we spy anybody else out on the pathway we can call the dogs back and leash them up before our defiance is discovered.  They’re pretty good at coming back when I shake the bag of treats, unless they spot a dog before we do.  If it’s a choice between a dog treat and sniffing another dog’s butt, the dog butt always wins out.

Once when we were walking them I didn’t notice Baxter had ranged out further than normal and headed up the only snow-free hill.  When I called him back he was covered in little sticky seeds.  And I mean covered.  This photo does not even begin to show how many seeds were stuck to his fur and beard and lips and ears and belly and paws because we'd already pulled off a bunch before I made Dean stop so I could take a picture which I can tell you did not excite him but he's gotten used to me saying, wait, I think I might want to blog this.... 

Anyway, we pulled off our mittens and began pulling off the seeds and tossing them aside but as we were tossing them, Baxter was trying to reach down and eat them while at the same time Angus was trying to eat them straight off of Baxter’s chest and neck.  We finally got them all off and even though we tried to prevent it, I think half of them ended up in Angus and Baxter’s bellies. 

A few days later we were back on the same pathway but this time we made sure Baxter kept away from that hill because even though the boys really enjoyed eating those seeds, pulling them off Baxter was not all that much fun for us.  Unfortunately, with all the warm weather we’d had the snow was almost gone so there were many more bushes exposed.  I got distracted, Baxter ranged out, and ... 

Back out came the leashes and as we were headed back toward the car Baxter spotted a wooly bear creeping across the pathway.  I was just ready to pull him back, worried he might think a wooly bear was an even better snack than the sticky seeds, when he touched his nose to it.  The wooly bear curled into a ball and Baxter jumped, straight into the air, at least a foot, maybe two.  It was like watching 90 pounds of black fur pop out of a jack-in-the-box.  At least the wooly bear is safe from being mistaken for a dog treat but the sticky seeds are too big a draw for the dogs to risk keeping them off-leash anymore.  So until winter once again comes back with a vengeance (as I know it will no matter how hard I try to convince myself we’re going to have an early spring) we will respect the leash law like the law-abiding citizens we are (mostly).

◦

Organic Dog Candy