With that said, when I need a dog fix, I turn to my parents. Now, if I want to run with a dog, I do not head to my father's house. The man has three chihuahuas, one being a puppy from the other two, and he also has an sweet old chocolate Lab that is blind and deaf. NOT good running partners. Instead I head to my mother's house. She has two dogs. One is a white ball of fluff as to which I am unsure of its breed. The other, however, is a fantastic boxer named Billy. It was truly a stroke of luck that my mom came across him. He was found, covered in fleas and emaciated. My mom covered her bases trying to find his original owner and had no success. After he regained his health and ditched the fleas, my mom learned that this John Doe of dogs was already capable of following many different commands: sit, stay, come, shake, roll over, etc. Impressive, right?! Who would ditch this dog and WHY?! It was a question that we both asked multiple times. She tried talking me into taking him and it was a solid no on my end, so she decided to keep him (best decision ever). Once the decision was final, she named him Billy (I am assuming after my late grandfather), took him to the vet and promptly stripped him of his manhood (poor Billy) and he is now a permanent addition to her household.
I have ran a couple of times with Billy over the last six months and I knew what I was getting myself into yesterday (or so I thought). He is very good on a leash, but when you begin to run, the dog takes off like a bat out of hell and you better hold on for dear life. Otherwise you may fall or dislocate some joint in your arm and/or shoulder. So, I had that to look forward to along with the 85 degree heat at 6:30 p.m. This run was looking outstanding already (insert sarcasm here). I was only attempting a short run with Billy since I have Cleveland this weekend, so it shouldn't be too bad, right? Oh, and did I mention that my friend Jodi gave me a couple samples of Advocare's Arginine Extreme supplement? Yeah, I thought I might as well factor that into things too. Go big or go home. I guzzled the 8 ounces of the citrus-y concoction as I was instructed, drove to my mom's and hoped for the best.
Upon arrival, I could tell that Billy was ready to go. I made the final decision that we would go for a quick three mile run, out and back from my mom's house. I changed my clothes, leashed him up and we were heading down the driveway. "Here goes nothing" I thought.
Now, my mom lives in a bit of a rural area. There are no sidewalks. You have a ditch on one side of the road and bean fields on the other. Actual road space is limited. The majority of cars that passed (which weren't TOO many) were courteous enough to get over into the other lane as they drove by. There were, however, a few who decided that even though there was no oncoming traffic, they had to get as close to us as possible with no where for us to go. Whether the drivers moved over or not, I discovered that Billy does not like passing cars. Every time one would drive by (going roughly 55 mph), he would jerk behind me so fast and he almost whipped me around a couple times. Discovering his fear early on, I realized that there was a high risk of us encountering a combine on our run. This, my friends, would be tragic. If the dog is scared of cars, I thought, he is going to have one hell of a time with a combine coming down the road.
We made it that fast first mile and we took a left on some country road. I glanced down at my Garmin after being on said country road for a couple minutes to see how much farther I needed to run before turning around. It said I was at 1.42 miles. When I looked up, I saw it. It was coming out of one of the fields and heading straight for us. Slowly but surely a combine was on its way and it looked like it was in attack mode (I mean, I am SURE that is what Billy thought). We hit our 1.5 mile marker before an encounter with the combine took place. But this meant that it was coming behind us now. I swear you would have thought a grizzly bear was chasing us. Billy, who had slowed down a bit at this point, was back into sprint mode. He kept turning around to check out the combine's whereabouts. This was making it very difficult for me to control him. A dog running very fast and trying to turn around at the same time while you are holding him on a leash is not a good mix. Finally the combine passed us and it took up the ENTIRE road and we were pushed into running in the field for a few seconds. Billy was scared beyond belief, but we survived. Phew! That was a close call.
The rest of the run was relatively uneventful. A couple of other barking dogs, a yard chicken and a pit stop for Billy to smell a dead possum. As we arrived back in the driveway, me drenched in sweat and right arm aching and Billy, tongue hanging out to the side and looking for a bowl of water, he stood by my side and looked at me. He seemed to be saying "thank you." At least that is what I want to think. In reality, he was probably thinking "what the hell did this lady just do to me?"
After Billy and I got some water, I realized how good I felt. I checked my total distance and pace and was astounded that I managed to average a sub-8 minute pace (barely) for three miles, in the heat, while wrangling a maniacal boxer. Woo hoo!! I need to give some credit to that Advocare Arginine Extreme! I felt pretty beastly out there!! I have another sample left and am going to give it another whirl in the morning! Not too bad of a run considering all the factors that were against me going in!!
All in all, it went well. It was a decent run and my mom text me later that night telling me he was whooped, which made her happy!! I am sure I will be running with Billy again soon. Tons of energy, and quite frankly, how could I saw no to that face?!
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