Spring Break

I have to confess, I’ve been hiding this week. It’s spring break, you see, and the weather is perfect.

We had a bad encounter early in the week (at the “bad park” of course) with some adolescent dogs and their teenaged handlers. They were obviously not used to being at the park. I took it as a sign to avoid anywhere that there might be off-leash dogs for the week. Silas’s regular walking park hosts spring break camp every year. Meeting an entire camp full of children on those narrow trails is the kind of thing I have bad dreams about. The tug-and-fetch park hosted a horse event a few weeks ago. They did not clean up afterwards.

On Thursday I realized I was being a big baby. As long as I avoided the park full of children and the park with the bad dogs, there was really no reason to stay home. Silas is fine with people at the park, even a fairly dense crowd of them, as long as they aren’t actually reaching for him. Honestly, he’s getting a lot better about even that. He’s only barked at one person in weeks, and he immediately gave her a second non-barking chance.

I put on my big girl pants and went out.

We were almost the only people in the park. Oh, irony. We played frisbee. We found the world’s most awesome stick (says Silas). Silas did tricks for treats. That’s right–he ate at the park.

Still, I’ll be glad when everybody goes back to work and school next week.