Walking through the woods with dogs is like taking very fast children to the zoo when it's crowded. One blink and they're gone. They always come back on their own though, unlike children. It makes me a bit nervous, but they have so much fun. The exercise and the enrichment is good for them. It's also feels good to be able to trust my dogs to be off leash. There's freedom there.
Back at the barn students arrived and I was pulling muddy horses out of a muddy pasture. After hosing off the horses, I hosed off the dogs, quickly dried them, and stuffed them into the truck. They were asleep by the time I glanced at the truck to check on them. There were much fewer people around for my last lesson so I went to free the dogs from their comfy cage.
The windows were all fogged up and they were happily looking at me and wagging their tails. I reached for the door handle and pulled. The door didn't open! I went around to the driver's door. Nothing! They were locked in! And of course my keys were sitting on the console.
I called Wayland to leave him a message saying he would need to come down with his keys to let me in my truck after he was finished at the gym. Then, I remembered that I bought a defective truck! The driver side rear door doesn't lock and unlock by power, only by hand! I called Wayland back, left him another message, and ran to the truck. The handle opened the door and the dogs were free!
I unlocked the rest of the doors and ushered the dogs into the barn to keep them mostly clean and out of the mud. They enjoyed running around the arena and eating horse poop unaware of my near panic. Of course, being locked in a truck on a 40 degree night isn't much of a danger to two pooches. . .just to the interior of my truck.
Regardless of my mistake, or perhaps because of it I had a great day with my dogs. Do you know what 'dog tired' looks like? I do. Two dogs run around trees, another dog, horses, people, water, birds, horse poop, strange cats, and mud for seven hours. They get home, pee again, poop again, eat dinner and collapse on the couch. They didn't go outside again before going to bed, which they always do. They didn't wake me up in the morning, which they usually do. And they are currently sleeping on the couch instead of staring at me with a toy at my feet.
I hope that early lesson slot on Monday doesn't fill up next week. I want more dog tired dogs.
