“She leapt out like

a race horse,

pulling so hard it was all I could do

to keep her from dragging me through the sand.”

At that point we knew roughly where the various lodges were so we didn't need to be taken there. An and I left New Friends and went out to Lodge #9 again, which was home to Cinderella and Mr. Chips, in addition to Lola and Pacer in another run. We entered Cindy and Chips' run and got them leashed up, then took them out onto the same walking trail that we had taken Lola and Pacer on the day before.

The day was a little more overcast than the day before, but it was still nice temperature-wise, somewhere in the high 60s. We went up the trail and down the other side, Cindy and Mr. Chips just trotting along, happy as could be. I had Mr. Chips, and we started to get a little bit ahead of An and Cindy. We crossed one of the roads and continued down the trail on the other side, when I saw some movement off to the side. I looked to the right in time to see two large deer bounding across the path right in front of us!

Mr. Chips went a little bit crazy and he tried to take off after the deer. I held him back and tried to distract him from the deer, which didn't work very well. After about 5 minutes he calmed down and was fine after that, but man, he sure did want to catch those deer. At that point we decided to turn around and head back, so head back we did. Chips and Cindy were disappointed that we were heading back so soon (even though we had already been gone for most of an hour), and were less enthusiastic about going home than they were about heading out.

We got them back to their run, made sure all the doors were closed and unleashed them. They were sad to see us go, and they watched us quietly from their run as we left to go pick up the next pair of dogs.

The next dogs we had signed up to walk were Dexter and Annie. They, like a lot of dogs in the lodges, weren't allowed to walk together because of their dog aggression issues, so we agreed beforehand to keep some distance. between us. What we weren't warned about was just how energetic and how pull-happy these dogs were. They were perfectly friendly, but once they were leashed up and out of their runs, wow. Annie and Dexter live in different lodges, so An decided to take Dexter and I said

would get Annie. I went to Lodge #9 to get Annie, and there was a sign on her gate that said to not mess with her toys because she has toy aggression issues. "No problem," I thought as I opened the gate and walked in. I was immediately leapt upon by a large Rottweiler, and she was easily the most energetic dog we had worked with yet. Super friendly, but really hyperactive. She jumped on me for a bit as I tried to make my way back into the run, then she ran out and grabbed a toy and started playing with it. Then she started growling at it, and I gave her a lot of room and walked towards the back door of the run with her leash in hand.

She knew it was time for a walk and she ran back to me at the gate. I made sure her leash was attached and that it was wrapped around my wrist because I knew she was really going to take off, and opened the gate. She leapt out like a race horse, pulling so hard it was all I could do to keep her from pulling me over and dragging me through the sand. I stood firm though so I could close the gate behind me, and we started heading towards the trail. I could see An with Dexter ahead of me, so I moved that direction, at a normal pace, holding Annie back the whole time.

Then I noticed that Annie was fixating on Dexter. As long as she could see him, she fixated and tried to run as fast as she could towards him, even if it

meant dragging me behind her. She's a pretty powerful dog, and it was taking more than a little effort to keep her from breaking into a full run. Periodically I would make her stop and wait until Dexter was no longer in view, which seemed to help a little bit. At least when she couldn't see any dogs she would go back to doing normal dog things like sniffing bushes and going potty.

So we walked like that for a while, we took a time out at one of the benches where she gulped down some water and got really snuggly against me, which was cool. She sat down and leaned her whole body against my legs, waiting for head rubs. She enjoyed the attention, but she enjoyed getting back on the trail even more. After we crested the big hill and started going down the other side, I noticed the pulling was worse going downhill, in the sense that she could pull even harder and she almost knocked me over a couple of times just from pulling. She could still see Dexter in the distance sometimes so she was still fixating. We came to a flat area with a bench and I decided it would be best to wait it out rather than continue to walk where she could still see Dexter.

Zak with Annie stays far ahead of An and Dexter

We sat at the bench for about 5 minutes, until I saw An and Dexter coming back. I got up and I yelled back to An, "We're going to go first on the way back, Annie keeps fixating on Dexter." So Annie and I got back on the trail with An and Dexter pretty far behind us, and Annie didn't have any more problems. She even slowed down some and wasn't pulling as hard. We got back to Dogtown, and I walked Annie back to her run. She was actually excited to get back inside, and once I locked the gate behind us and took her leash off, she ran to play with her toys and drink some water.

Despite burning off a lot of energy on the walk, she was still jumping all over me and wiggling and barking. She didn't want me to leave, and barked after me as I closed her gate behind me and left the lodge. I met up with An a few minutes later and learned that Dexter was another really energetic dog who pulled really hard and was a bit hard to contain on a leash.

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