Don't choose your dog as a running partner....

For those of you that know me, you know that I have a golden retriever named Isabella Puppaleeni (Bella or Leeni for short). As a golden it is in her nature to love everyone so when people come over to our house she does about a 3 minute "twirl" around their feet. It drives me nuts, but I have to admit it's better than the 10 minute grand slam/twirl that she used to do.
Because of this I quit taking her on walks awhile back because she would do this for every person, other dog, cat, bird, street sign t hat she met. I started just taking her out in the country to my brother-in-law's farm shop to let her run.
But this morning I got this great idea, why not take her on a run with me at 6? Surely no one else will be up and she will love it.

I forgot that Bella has gotten a bit out of shape and is a tad bit of a wide load.
The first part of our trip was great because I just started out with a brisk walk, when I started running she looked at me like "NO WAY!" and she got all excited and was running too....for about 25 second...then I noticed that instead of the leash pulling ahead of me, it was starting to drop along beside me...and pretty soon behind me.

I ran for 2 minutes and then stopped to walk and she had this expression on her face like "HOLY CRAP I'VE GOTTEN FAT" and her tongue was hanging to the ground. I was afraid she might hyperventilate. So, we walked for 3 minutes and then started to run again.

I think she had tired of the running because she tried to sabotage me. She would run in front of me one direction, then quickly the other direction and THEN LOOK BACK AT ME to see if I had fallen and died. I think she just planned on dragging my dead carcass home. She did it like 6 times!

SO, I stuck my tongue out at her (just like Maisy does and I even threw in the "eyes" for special effect) and ran faster.

This caused Bella to pull out the "big guns" and she stopped and took one of the biggest craps she ever has IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET.
She took her time too. So, I had to stand there and wait. And Wait. I had enough time to plan Maisy's future college career at Parson's school of design.
Of course I had not brought anything to pick it up with either. : ( She had already done her business for the day! DAMN DOG.
(I did drive back and pick it up....I just couldn't leave THAT in the middle of the street!)

For the last part of our run I started a cool down. Slowly started decreasing my pace until I was in a nice calm walk.
That's when Bella looked at me with her big old sad brown eyes and said, "You know what, that wasn't so bad." At least that's what I thought she said.

I knew how she felt. I had felt the same on my first run. I wanted to die, thought I would shit myself and couldn't wait to get home.

I think Bella might be a runner too. :)