Running with More Dogs

by Maggie Mae Mushko
(Border Collie: age 2 years and almost 11 months)

This morning, Mommy loaded up Hubert and me to go for a walk. But this walk was a surprise! Our friend Karen went with us. (I like Karen. She understands me.) We didn't go to our farm. We went to visit Belle and Penny, my Australian Shepherd running buddies, who live just over yonder. Last night, Mommy and Claudia and Karen all went to hear Lori Long talk about her book, A Dog Who's Always Welcome. Mommy was going to blog about it, but Marion beat her to it. Anyhow, they decided to have a group dog-walk this morning. (Please note that the humans walk, but we dogs run!)

Here is Karen with Belle:


For a while, Mommy kept me on a leash because she didn't know what I would do around those little horses that live with Belle. Once we were in the woods, though, she turned me loose.

Since Belle was the hostess, I followed her for a while. But when we came to the pond, Melissa was there with her three dogs. Penny jumped in the pond and swam around, but I didn't swim. There were too many interesting smells to investigate.

The pond is out of sight at the left here. But this trail had lots of good smells.

Plus I had to introduce myself to those other dogs. One of them was Penny's sister, Jazzy. Both puppy sisters are on the rock behind Belle in this picture. (This was a very good creek to soak in!)


Melissa's dog Cricket was the hostess for part of the run. She is a short little cocker spaniel-type, but she can keep up with the stock dogs. Here she is with Belle:


Like I said, this was a wonderful creek for soaking and running. The picture below shows all four of us stock dogs:


We ran so much that even Hubert had to get in the water and cool off:

Mommy didn't take any pictures of us running. We'd all be blurs.

There was another dog named Maggie with us, but Mommy didn't get a good picture of her. She was a sweet little black dog, so I didn't mind that she had the same name as I do.

We ran so hard that I often had to get in the creek. None of the four women went into the creek (they didn't even run!), so I tried to shake my excess water on them so they could cool off, too.


Besides running and soaking, we dogs also did some investigating. When we went up the hill, we had to check out this tree stump:


Before we got back to our truck, Mommy put my leash on again. I don't know why she won't let me herd those little horses. They would be fun to herd!

After we left Belle's farm, we went to mine. We showed Karen the sights along Polecat Creek. Plus, I played frisbee with Karen.

After we got home, Mommy took a two-hour nap. Humans have no stamina. I was ready to go again.

I like running with a pack. Those dogs are always welcome to join me for a run.

~