I took all 4 dogs to the dog park yesterday. People think I'm crazy but it's all in a days work so to speak. Plus, I get to treat myself to a over-priced, gourmet coffee from the coffee-hut near the dog park. It's kind of like my payment to myself for cramming the dogs into the SUV and hauling us all down there. Buttercup, the chi mix is kind of a douche to other dogs no matter what their size, so I had to keep her on a leash. But every one had fun.
However, apparently Rosie wasn't finished with her adventure. When we got home, I was unloading the dogs from the rig and I *thought* I had all the leashes in hand.
Rosie thought, "Hm, I feel no tension on the leash. I wonder what would happen if I step this way?" Step, step step, "I'm FREE! LATER LOSERS! WOO HOO!" As she tears off down the road and follows her nose straight to my neighbors place.
When she got bored looking for my neighbor's Labrador, she followed her nose to the nutria infested , nasty-ass slough that leads a mile down the way to a log pond. Lovely.
The only way for me personally to get back there was to backtrack to the gate, then backtrack again to the only opening in the wall of blackberry vines that I could get through without gouging my eyes out. Meanwhile Rosie is happily bounding through the knee deep "water" like a deer. Back and forth, back and forth. Boing-splash, Boing-splash, leap up, splash, boing.
As I stood on the bank of this lovely-smelling goop stream, Rosie would come within 5 feet of me, then bound happily away, dog-smiling the whole time. Back and forth, back and forth.
I finally decided enough was enough. The last time she tangled with a nutria she got beat up pretty bad and has the scars to prove it. I wasn't going to let her get hurt again; no matter how stupid she can be sometimes.
I was extremely thankful I had my BOGS on, as I then found a long metal pole thing that was laying around, for my balance, because the last thing I wanted was to fall up to my neck in this shit. Literally, shit too. I actually saw nutria poop floating by. {{SHUDDER}}
I gingerly stepped into the water and received the awesome experience of feeling my boots fill up with cold, slimy "water". Using my pole as a depth checker and also to fight off any rabid nutria that might decide that my ankle looked tasty, a proceeded to try to follow Rosie as she bounded down the quagmire.
I cannot begin to describe the smell of this liquid, shit filled stream I was walking through. Let me just say that I almost horked. Seriously. Shawshank Redemption ain't got nothin' on this stinky, stanky, sticky, shit.
After about 15 minutes of me following her, calling her and cursing the demon gods of dogs that make them think every thing is a game, I decided that although I wanted to keep an eye on her, I also was going to need help and I did not have my phone.
I waded as fast as I could, about 25 yards from where I was, to the opening in the brambles and climbed up the bank with watery, goo filled boots that probably weighed 15 pounds a piece. After emptying my boots as well as I could, I ran-squished my way to the only gate out of three that was open, and then back-tracked a block and a half to my house to get my cell phone.
After a panic filled call to my husband at work and a neighbor, I was off to go back after Rosie. I needn't have worried about not being able to re-locate her, I just headed towards the area where all the pissed off geese and ducks were coming from.
The neighbor, her husband and son came to help; thank goodness. They didn't have to bother with going around fences, they went over them. Barbed wire be damned.
I made it back to where they had jumped over the fence, slogging through the muck and mire and discovering a whole mess of wild roses that I had no other choice put to plow through. By then the splashing noises had stopped and the water fowl had stopped bitching. As we re-grouped, it came upon me all of a sudden like.
My four-shot fancy-dancy coffee had kicked in. Have you ever seen an almost 40-year-old woman run through a shit filled stream wearing shit-stream-water filled boots, clamber up an embankment and run a block and a half to a toilet while trying not to crap her pants? My neighbors have. And now you can imagine it. Your welcome.
Anyway I digress, after narrowly escaping that embarrassment, I was back to the water, dredging back up to where I had last left off. Meanwhile the neighbor guys had tracked her to the pond, where she turned down another slough and made it to the street behind mine. Instead of following in Rosie's footsteps I decided the best course of action was to trudge back to my street and try and meet up with them.
Before I was even half way to the embankment to get out of the water, the neighbors called and reported that they had her. After chasing her into their own yard and all over a field near their house, she finally was just too tired to play any more.
Gee I wonder why she was so tired. She had only been running all over the dog park for an hour and then sloshing through the nasty Nutria River for three hours.
So, all is well now. We got baths, food, and naps. And Rosie has a meet and greet today with a potential adopter. Thank St. Rocke.
