Short Walk Interrupted – #1LinerWeds

When I am home, either on vacation or on the weekend, Maddie has come to expect that I will take her for a walk in the morning. She has a certain routine, and when the boxes are checked, we’re supposed to go. I have to try and explain to her that “it’s raining” or “it’s already too hot” or “it’s yucky humid” but usually, I cave into the sad face, the running to the door and the barking at her leash. In other words, she has me well trained.

The big reason why I cave is because she’s so happy when we start walking.

I’ve mentioned before that we have a short walk and a long walk. Well, as of last week, we have an emergency even-shorter-than-short walk. On two occasions, we had to cut our walk short. One was a normal Maddie thing – the presence of others on the planet. A guy pulled into the park with two dogs in his truck. Maddie isn’t a social animal, so that would normally send us around the park’s back side. But, that woman with the walker was walking over there. Topping it all off was a woman walking her dog toward us on the other side of the street. I turned Maddie around and headed home while she cranked her head around to keep tabs on all the bad guys who were following us.

The next day, we left even earlier. It looked like the coast was clear. Until. We. Came. To. The. Park. Maddie stopped in her tracks and would not move. I looked around to see if that lady in the walker was on the prow, but I quickly spied who Maddie was looking at. Two foxes. We’re guessing a mom and a young one, because we’ve heard that the fox we had seen a few weeks ago was tending to a couple of pups. I looked at Maddie and said:

“How about we call it a day and head home?”

At the sound of the word ‘home’ Maddie turned around and started walking.

This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s fun weekly series One-Liner Wednesday. If you have a one-liner, I’d encourage you to join in on the fun. You can follow this link to participate and to see the one-liners from the other participants.

The gallery includes a few pictures of the fox family and a few shots from along the way on that day and other days this past weekend. For those who were wishing Maddie good wishes, she seems to have bounced back from whatever had her in a funk. The video shows her walking over to her cot. Not running yet, but at least she wants to sit.

This pretty much says “this park is closed.”

I don’t want to get too close to that guy.

I love that tail.

“I don’t think we should go this way, Maddie.”

These guys were moving very fast.

“We going to go. Please don’t follow us.”

“I know the foxes are in the area. I’m going to nibble a few things and then hide.”

“Hey, did you guys hear, there’s some foxes on the loose around here.”

“OK, I’m getting out of here until those foxes are gone.”

This little girl came to our door the night before, during a thunderstorm. She lives at this house.

Mushroom or drink parasol?

Mushrooms are everywhere.

Maddie’s is closed for vacation – now what do I do for breakfast?

I don’t think this is how the carts are supposed to be stored.

Home Depot is supposed to be open.

The sun is rising later each day.

This little guys bangs open the mailbox to let us know he’s there.

Sometimes I grab this and ask MiMi if she knows which foot it is. She’s rarely impressed.

“Please just let me sleep”