EVERY DAY IS THE BEST!

Animals live in the moment. They don't think about the upcoming meeting, what someone said to them yesterday, or how they will handle the work that needs to be done before the end of the week. They live for today and tomorrow they start all over again. We can all learn from them and be more cognizant of our surroundings, to smell the air and detect the nuances of how people are relating to us and to enjoy each day. I know that there are dogs and cats out there who wake up grumpy and are grumpy all day but there is always a reason for their behavior. Something is not right with their health or their surroundings.

I think my dog wakes up every day thinking that this day will be the best day. Yesterday was a great day for him. We went walking on some fields that has a marsh and creek running through it. Hay is grown on these fields and it was cut recently so it was easy to walk along the rows of stubble. The dog runs along these fields picking up all sorts of smells. When I walk with the dog off leash on these fields or in other places, several things makes me nervous. He likes to find dead animals which he rolls on or will eat or better yet, find some stinky poop from another dog which he will then proceed to roll on. We have had several instances of him stinking, with streaks of poop along his neck, shoulder and belly and then the DH or me having to give him a bath. I actually have a process worked out to deal with these stinky situations.

On yesterday's walk, he flushed out some pheasants, rolled on some poop, searched for gophers, smelled a million different things and had a jolly good time. We were headed back towards the road and he decided to check out the small deck that goes out over the marsh. After giving the deck a thorough inspection, he trotted into the muddy marsh. I held my breath when I saw him walk towards me. He was covered to his knees in mud, all four legs were coated. I shook my head. For him this was the best day. But wait, there was more to come. He then found what I believe was a dead gopher and decided to eat it. I couldn't convince him to come to me and bribing him with a cookie wasn't going to work. After he ate the dead gopher, he ran to the creek. There are bull rushes that run along the creek but he found an area where it is open. He saw ducks in the creek along with ducklings and deciding to go swimming and see if he could catch them. He went swimming towards these ducks. Thank god they can out swim him, he was getting further down the creek and my yelling at him was having zero effect. Eventually he realized he was not going to catch them and had to find a spot where he could get through the bull rushes and come back to me. The upside of this swim was that the mud on his legs and the other streaks on his belly from rolling in something were all washed off!!

It was a great day for the dog. Until next time.....