Gromit's Nose Knows the Way

Lots of people talk to animals.... Not very many listen, though.... That's the problem.  ~Benjamin Hoff, The Tao of Pooh

Gromit and Chewie have had quite a spring.  We have made some adjustments to the house that directly impacted their everyday life.  Some were welcome changes others took a bit of time to find new routines to accommodate.

For example, the water feature moved.  At first they watched from the dining room windows as a crew demolished the old driveway next to the house.

Then they moved to the screen porch to see the water feature deconstructed and

rebuilt 20 feet from where it had once stood

Alas, through the process, our own OSHA doodle, Chewie had panic attacks when Kristin took her amateur skills to monster machines -

Finally things took shape - there was now a new hill, a water fall

AND

Chewie's own personal extra large water dish and cooling pond.  But if you look closer at the picture above you can see a patio and tree where Gromit and Chewie's dog yard once stopped.  They now had access to more yard.  

They adjusted rather happily to these changes.  Gromit took to the hill holding the water fall, like a certain goats take to mountains.  He scales it daily to check on the neighbors and their rain garden.    

And from here he can also see the happenings on the street and has a better look at the hosta garden.

Chewie started taking a soak or two in the pond, mid-stride during his ball fetching games with Paul.  

And both enjoyed that we shared their yard and porch with them now.  

Next came the changes to the doors.  We had three doors from our kitchen to the outside.  One for the dogs to get to the dog yard, one to the screen porch and yet another midway up the stairs from the basement and only a mere 2 feet from the porch door.  

We converted two doors to windows.  Now one of those doors happen to be the dog door.  They had no need of this door now that they could get to the yard from the porch.  This in fact was quite confusing to Chewie.  He is a doodle of certain and comforting routines.  He would sit under the window waiting for us to let him outside.  Once outside, he would walk up the stairs that used to lead to the door and sit again under the window, though this time from the outside, waiting for someone to open the wall and let him in.  He has since adjusted and the stairs are no longer standing.  

We moved their food dishes from the kitchen to the living room.  This is temporary until dry wall, painting, and cabinets are completed.  The boys have joined their food dishes with little hesitation as along with their dishes rolled the magic food container - the endless supply for their bowls....

And with the warm weather Chewie and I no longer can run together as often or as far.  He just doesn't tolerate the heat.  So...Gromit and I had our first trail run this weekend.  And it was kind of a doozy.  Gromit and I ran on Saturday and I think it is safe to say that as of Monday night nose class....he was still recovering from his big adventure.  

I think he might still be recovering from something else - he was trying to help me with directions and I didn't listen.  

We were up north visiting at a friend's cabin.  There are cross country ski trails in state forrest land very close to their cabin.  Miles of trails with hills and changing terrain.  Perfect, I thought for a little run to get me ready for the Berkie half marathon trail run. 

As always, I filled up my camelback with water, grabbed some calories in the form of a Luna bar without chocolate - to share with Gromit, mixed up some glycocharge for my running partner to drink- grabbed a backup folding dish in case we ran out of glycolcharge, and put on my running shoes.   Our friends loaded up their backpacks for a practice hike and we were off.

There was no one in site and Gromit and I headed out on the trail.  I let him off his leash, the grass and ferns were knee high right out of the gate.  He was smiling and doing that leaping run. I just counted the knee high grass as an extra challenge.  Since none of it was trampled I felt certain no one was hiking ahead of us.  We managed well for about 20 minutes and my shoe lace came untied.  I stopped to tie it and was immediately swarmed by about 50 mosquitoes.  Yuck!  So we kept going.  There were trees down and swampy low wetland areas, hills and wild life. 

I was a little concerned at 25 minutes that Gromit had not had any water so I tried the glycocharge but he wouldn't have any of it from the bottle.  I stopped and pulled out the folding dish and was swarmed by mosquitoes and flies.  I poured some in the dish and paced back and forth swatting mosquitoes, bleeding and sweating like crazy.  It was humid, sunny and hot.  Gromit had just a little.  Then he laid down.  Oh, oh - I got him up and we headed out.  At 40 minutes I tried plain water and finally we came upon a huge puddle.  He guzzled up the water.  I splashed through the trail and he came with me not wanting to get left behind.  

By this time I realized we were both miserable.  The bugs were awful.  My arms and legs were covered with bites.  Gromit was tired and I stopped running and started walking.  We looked for the straight route back to the car.  Gromit started dogging behind me and every time we came to a pond, lake or puddle I encouraged him to get in.  He layed down in mud, waded in clear puddles and lapped up water at every opportunity.  I couldn't stop moving though because of the bugs.  And he couldn't relax because I couldn't stop moving.  

My music stopped working but the GPS guy kept a nice track of our route so I could always match us to a map.  When the music stopped working all I could hear was the buzzing of the mosquitoes.  Eventually I took the earbuds out of my ears but it just made the buzzing louder.  

I started wondering how much the deep woods off arm made for the commercials.  I wished for some repellent to keep the bugs away- but figured I just would have sweat it off.  I apologized to Gromit a lot in my head but tried to stay calm and keep him moving it was the only way to get out of this mess and I didn't want him worried.  Then I pretended we were on survivor - I would have purposely lost a challenge to get off the island if it was this buggy.  I started to imagine the locals making crazy fun of the lady who went on a trail run that was tick and mosquito infested.  

I opened the luna bar.  I don't think either of us thought we were hungry after an hour but I didn't want to start getting crabby and calories seem to keep my head clear.  Gromit ate a few pieces.  We stopped a few more times for Gromit but it took us a total of 2 hours to get out of the woods - so to speak.  I watched for his tongue to make sure it didn't start curling up at the tip - signs of heat exhaustion. 

At the very end of the trip  - we did about 7 miles, I lost my sense of direction just a bit.  We headed up a path but it seemed backwards to me.  Gromit was insistent that we keep going.  He stood tall trying to be Lassie in a doodle costume.  He looked at me like I was crazy when I turned around.  I told him I thought it was old trail.  Even if the grass was pushed down in the right direction - I thought that might have been from our trip out not my friends returning to the car.  We had come way to far to take the wrong trail now.  I bet he was thinking the same thing but graciously, ever so Gromit politely came with me(Chewie would have been scolding me like crazy).

I texted my friends that I was not sure of my course but knew I was within a .9k of the highway.  I used the GPS and walked on a dirt road. Here are a couple of views of Gromit at the end of the run - we are on a dirt road that the trail led to - but was difficult to figure out where to go from here - 

It wasn't quite right and I ran into a hand written "stay out""no trespassing" sign which I heeded.  

I headed back to the original trail and Gromit just gave me this 'duh' kind of look and was so happy he started to run ahead of me again.  Eventually we rounded a corner and our friend was there calling for Gromit.   Turns out their hike was every bit as agonizing with the bugs and they turned around before they had planned to as well.  

When we got back to their cabin I ran Gromit down to the lake and cleaned up the mud.  Needless to say he was exhausted.  We gave him some benadryl to help with itchiness from the bug bites, found a sore that I put some hydrocortisone creme on and then de-ticked him for the rest of the evening.  He is treated preventatively for ticks and lyme, but the ticks were walking off him like crazy.  Then they walked on me - ugh! 

I guess I learned my lesson - Gromit's nose really does know where it is going - I will surely listen to him next time.  We won't be doing any trails like that soon.  I will stick to maintained trails and short distances with the big guy.  I am on my own in the summer and I miss running with Chewie a lot.  Gromit did great but he needs to build up a bit and when it is too hot it is just too hot.  They are such good boys.  I will listen to them in the future  - they are the bellwether of reason.