Easter run, best laid eggs……………

This morning I had a quick 8 km run planned which turned into a bit of a cluster. I love running with Seamus O’Malley. Everyone who has visited my site and read my blog posts knows this. He can be a real pain in the ass, though, when I run with him first thing in the morning. We both run fasted, so you’d think that his pooping would be kept at a minimum, but it never is. I don’t call him Sir Poops-a-Lot for nothing. I really don’t mind picking up after him though. After all, I’m sure he’d do it for me, should our roles be reversed.

Anyway, this morning at 8:00 am I thought….hmmmm, why not let my husband take both Seamus O’Malley and Bella Blue to the dog park? I would just plan a route that would take me right by that location so I could pick Seamus up for the last part of the run. He would already have done his business and we could finish my run together, hopefully without me having to stoop to scoop the poop. Tim could then load Bella Blue in the SUV and head home with her.  PERFECTION!!!  I quickly calculated (with my Garmin’s help) that I could do a route that would take me right by the dog park at the 4.5 km mark. So, after giving my husband the Six Legs to Fitness leash, the martingale collar and some extra poop bags (just in case Seamus still had the desire) off on my run I went, and off went my husband with the dogs.

Everything went perfectly. I arrived at the dog park and Seamus was so happy to see me. I quickly grabbed all of his running gear, including the extra poop bags, and hooked him up to me. We were ready to do a quick 3.5 km which would give me my 8 km run! Ermmmm…..not so fast. As we left the enclosure of the dog park, Seamus started to attempt to go back in. Fine….I pulled him a bit harder and managed to get his attention, for three seconds….in many ways a record for him really.

It was a complete meltdown from that moment on. I should have given him back to Tim, but I am a determined person! I had to drag him past the dog parks’ long chain link fence in order to get him back to the area that we needed to start the run. As the dog park crowd watched, I literally cajoled, begged, dragged and had a battle of wills with an Irish Setter. Honestly, I felt like I was hauling a resistant prisoner on his way to an execution. Seamus LOVES to run, but he did NOT want to go with me and the reason soon became clear. Bella Blue.

Now, let me be clear. Bella Blue did not give a rats ass what Seamus was doing or where he was going. That is the dynamic of their relationship. Seamus cares about Bella, and Bella lives her life. Occasionally she will give Seamus the gift of her sneer.

As I forcibly moved Seamus closer and closer to our departure area I could see that his eyes were following Bella Blue and he became visibly and vocally distressed. Every eyeball was on me at that point and I could see judgments forming, which surprisingly I am OK with as I judge all day, every day. It’s a disease with me.

I assumed that once I got Seamus to our starting point and away from any view of the dog park or Bella Blue, that things would be OK. As it turned out that was a foolish assumption on my part. I started our run but I quickly had to slow to a walk as Seamus kept cutting in front of me and then pulling me back to where we had came from. As I knew what Seamus obviously did not, that we would both see Bella and my husband again before we died, I did the masterly thing and kept going…..and going…and going. We walked about half a kilometer which brought us to the lake. NOW, he would get back to being my normal Speedy McSpeedster. He’d see the ducks and the squirrels and Seamus would forget all about his dire situation and get down to the business at hand which was to run our faces off. Nope.

The next 2 km were indeed run by us, but Seamus, who normally stays to the right of me and four feet ahead was either pacing by my side or lagging behind and repeatedly looking back to where we had come from. It was not until we had about one kilometer to go when he finally realized where we were and that home was not far. We had the fastest kilometer ever recorded in the history of man and canine running together. The speed was particularly problematic as we arrived in the village of Bronte. There were hoards of children with their parents going from store to store getting free Easter chocolate from the shops. My sincere admiration goes out to several parents who felt they had to very quickly snatch up their progeny, but still had time to curl their lips at me. Very well done! Your children, however, were never in actual danger. Also I adored how the children had much better reactions to our vamoosing than their parents. They all stopped to watch the Big Red Dog and the person being dragged behind. Seamus has that effect on kids. They all love him.

**I want to note here that I was completely in control of Seamus at all times because of the Six Legs to Fitness leash, the Martingale collar AND the fact that we have trained and logged many, many miles together. I was never actually being dragged by Seamus O’Malley. I have even written an article on how to properly run with your dog. I put this disclaimer in in case there is anyone out there thinking that I would actually be reckless around families. My writing style has liberal amounts of sarcasm and hyperbole scattered throughout each post. Deal with it.

We arrived back home and Seamus could not even wait until the garage door was completely up before wiggling underneath and rushing to the entryway leading to our downstairs foyer. I let him in, and just as I suspected, he rushed past my husband and hurriedly approached Bella Blue who was relaxing in a chair.

She barely looked up but he began licking her and sniffing her like she had been away at boarding school for eight semesters.

So….lesson from this? I am NEVER doing this again with Seamus. When I run with him first thing in the morning it will be from our home and not at a location where Seamus feels that Bella Blue will be in mortal danger if not for his constant surveillance.  I will just resign myself to picking up his multiple droppings and running a route where the garbage cans are abundant. Oh, and as it turned out, Seamus still had two poops left in him, so I was stooping to scoop anyway…..Sir Poops-a-Lot, my Four Leaf Rover.

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