Taking Walks

Last night I took two walks. One with CootieBoy, another with CootieGirl.

On CootieBoy’s walk he actually refused to walk. He only wanted to be in my arms. I was going to take him over to the neighborhood park to go down the slide a few times before it got dark. We got a block from the house when we saw a little dog just trotting aimlessly down the sidewalk. We passed it and said hello, and then thought it was following us. In actuality, it was a blind/deaf dog that had no idea where it was going. At one point I knelt down and put out my hand to let it smell me, and instead it just walked into me. That’s when I realized it was blind. When I called out to make it get out of the way of an oncoming car and it didn’t even perk up it’s ears, that’s when I realized it was also deaf and stepped into the road to make the car slow down and not hit the dog.

For the next 30 minutes I struggled between holding CootieBoy (who still refused to be put down on the sidewalk) and keeping 20-30 cars from hitting this poor little oblivious dog. When a car pulled into a nearby driveway I would walk up and ask if they knew who owned the dog. Four homeowners begged ignorance about it.

Finally, a woman and her daughter out walking their dog stopped to help me and were able to pick up the dog. After a brief discussion (keep the dog and make a sign, take the dog to the humane society) we decided that the humane society was the best bet. Laura, the woman, said that so many families had moved over the past few weeks that she thinks that someone left the dog behind when they moved. It was sad – the dog was obviously very old, very hungry, and very much in need. But Laura took the dog home and said she’d take it to the humane society today after giving it food, water and a warm night’s sleep at her place.

At that point I took CootieBoy home, but upon arriving CootieGirl demanded to be taken on her own “nature walk” (as she called it). I bundled her up (it was COLD last night!) and we promptly went out for our own walk. We saw lots of Halloween decorations (our new neighborhood obviously loves their holidays because a LOT of folks have their houses decorated – I can’t wait to see it at Christmastime!) and CootieGirl spent almost the entire 20 minute walk talking about princesses.