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morning run:
Oscar
Otto
Archie
Chester
Truman
Rufus
Reggie
Jack
(8)
On Wednesday it was cold enough to actually call it "cold", but today the cold is gone and we're starting to get some heat early. It was correspondingly much more humid than it has been; the wind was the only thing that really saved me, because I wasn't ready for the heat. The Brethren have been hanging around close, and our dogs must've felt it as we were at the gate, because they were really worked up. The harness helped a lot with Rufus, but he was still too excited; he needs individual work on leaving and coming in. The Brethren were indeed close by in the monte behind our house and barked at us as we went by, but none of ours even bothered to go say "hi," they just continued on the normal path. We did 10k in a strange way today, maybe a little more. We started by going south, where the land bridge is now maybe only 60% under water, and not very deep any more. We did the usual southern entrance, then all the way north via the palapa-on-stilts road. I didn't feel like going to the beach, since there are more people around now, so we started to head out on the road to Xixim. I had been thinking we could do the long and winding road, since this group can run forever, but we got about half way there and I decided that 10k was enough for today; I'm swamped with work, and the change in weather was taking it out of me more than I had realized. This turned out to be a good decision, as I'm plenty tired now. If we had gone on I would be toast for the rest of the day. Other than getting out of the gate everyone was stellar. We ran right by an elderly gent heading out to the monte on his bike and there wasn't so much as a bark.
GRADE: A
morning run:
Bette
Gracie
Frijolita
Osita
Posey
Godzilla
Elewah
Molly
(8)
Molly was on the harness today for the first time, with mixed results. She managed to back out of the stupid thing on the trail to the shrimpery; it was too large and she got it turned inside-out easily, so I adjusted it while on the run and got it on her again at the end of the coco trail. We did the long and winding road the "right" way which, curiously, is actually counter-clockwise if viewed from above. It's clear but cold and windy today, and we left early while it was extra chilly. This group, like many recently, was built to fly and the cold just egged them on. When we got to the turning point on the road to Xixim I seriously considered heading all the way to Playa Maya, but I need to work today and we were keeping a fast pace; 10k is doable but 14k tires me out too much. I tried Molly on the leash three times during the course of 10k, the last one of which went on for ~500m, maybe a bit more (it felt like more). She was basically an anchor, but by the end of it she was at least moving her feet a little with me instead of digging her heels in... boy, is she heavy. In spite of not liking the leash, she doesn't pull a Tuesday and regard me suspiciously after I let her off; she'll come right up to me and give me a kiss if I call her, so at least she's easy to get on the hook if need be. We're going to have to work on this with her, but I don't count it as bad behavior on her part, it's just something she has to learn like everyone else; I keep reminding myself how impossibly bad Posey was on the leash at first. Besides our battles over the leash the run was fast, beautiful, chilly and uneventful. Apparently, nobody besides me is crazy enough to be out there that early when it's this cold.
GRADE: A
morning run:
Shirley
Blue
Eve
Rita
Ernie
Maggie
Ziggy
(7)
Strange group with Shirley's so-called "fourth line." Ernie left on the harness, and was on it for about half of the run in total; it made getting out much easier. The Brethren were close by in the woods directly across doce when we left, and everyone was stellar about it; they were gone by the time we came home. We probably did between 8-9k and it was a bit long for Maggie, as she was dragging a little at the end. Shirley's pace is always so high that adding a slow dog with her is usually frustrating, but we muddled through and had a good run anyway. We did a southern route, with the intention of heading north and hitting the hidden trail at the end, but when I realized Mags was getting tired we bagged that idea and came home from the Au Soleil Couchant access road via the shire. I wanted to ford the charco at the dead goat road but Blue and Eve balked at the cold water, and I didn't feel like fighting it so we went around instead.
GRADE: A
morning run:
Alice
Lucy
Ginger
Gowron
Monkey
Floyd
(6)
Working with Floyd on the leash some more, so I didn't take too many. We did a little over 8k in stormy weather, via the standard southern route. I don't think the distance touched him at all - he could obviously have gone a lot farther. He was extremely good on the leash, and was on the whole time; I think he found it kind of comforting. I am convinced after running with him that he has a fairly serious deficiency with his vision. His reaction to things like birds and lizards and leaves that blow across the road is disorganized and surprised, and frequently does not track reality well; if you look at the other dogs and how they react, you can clearly see that they are in two different worlds. On the other hand, Floyd immediately grasped how to drink water out of the bottle without even seeing the other dogs do it, which is a first; they usually have to learn that. He did try to suck out of the wrong end of the bottle at one point, however, which also made me think maybe he can't see too well. He's not dumb, that's for sure. To work on the "sit" command I made him sit every time I gave him water, and he was doing much better by the end of the run. Everyone else had a famously good time, and the sisters were pretty good about keeping up... their group-mind is sometimes impossible to deal with, but today they were not so thick that way. Really brisk out, still drying out slowly (had a tiny bit of rain last night), no people or signs of them anywhere. They just chopped back a bunch of brush and small trees around the charco right at the start of the dead goat trail, so when you go past now it feels like you can see for kilometers to the north. Strange. It'll all grow back in six months.
GRADE: A
mid-day walk:
Zasu
Alice
Lucy
Floyd
(4)
In the interest of working with Floyd we went out on a leash for a short (~2km) walk with some senior dogs who also need it. Zasu was an angel. Alice probably would have been good if her evil sister had not been along; as it was they screwed around for the first ~5 minutes doing who-knows-what near the shrimpery while I yelled for them, but they finally came around they were good from then on. We just did the dirty road loop. I worked constantly with Floyd on the "sit" command. Although I kept him on a fairly short leash almost the whole time I have to say that he is a dream to walk with. He barely pulls and seems to completely understand the leash, which is surprising. I am almost certain that he has a fairly serious vision problem, mostly in his right eye. His reactions to things are definitely not what you'd expect, and when you compare where he's looking to where the other dogs are looking when something happens you have to come to the conclusion that there's something wonky with his eyes. I let him off briefly to swim with the sisters in one of the charcos; he likes water, goofed around a bit and came back to me and the leash with no complaints. Good boy Floyd.
GRADE: B
morning run:
Oscar
Otto
Archie
Chester
Rufus
Frankie
Jack
(7)
Nice to have seven. We left late, but there was a chill in the air and this is yet another fast group, so we still managed to crank out 10k. We went south to start with; the land bridge is now finally drying out and is only ~30% under water. From there we went south down the main road, east into the monte, all the way north on the palapa-on-stilts road, to the hidden trail and down to the beach, south to the tortuga sign and home via the monte. I would've gone back into the monte at Au Soleil Couchant, but Frankie really wanted to eat the nasty fish on the beach, and I didn't see any reason to make a fuss about it, so we just kept going. The beach is not as gross as it has been of late, but there is no good place on it to run due to all of the detritus strewn along the shore from storms and low tides. The water is chilly, but clear, and very shallow for a long way out. At least the sea birds love it, so that's fun to see. Just as we were arriving at the north corner of the cow pasture and the dirty road a small fox went flying across the road 20m ahead of us, and I do mean flying: it was literally two feet in the air when we saw it, and had obviously realized that there were seven dogs right there. Rufus, Frankie, Jack, Otto and Oscar gave chase, but it was a fairly desultory affair; either they were tired, they realized the futility of their chase (there was no way they were going to catch it), or they're just all very well behaved doggies, but they were all back with me within 30 seconds.
GRADE: A
morning run:
Bette
Gracie
Posey
Godzilla
Truman
Molly
Elewah
(7)
This started out as an A, devolved to a B and ended up as a C, but it was still a good run. This group sort of put itself together effortlessly, and although I intended to take Eve as well I then thought maybe that bit about discretion and valor I was on about before should occasionally be considered before we leave. We were flying right out of the gate, and that was a constant throughout: this was a fast group. We ran into The Brethren early on, and it was hardly a blip: everyone was friendly and caught up with me immediately after saying "hi." From there we did the long and winding road backwards, sort of out of necessity: about 500m west of the junction where you have to turn north to go that way, a van carrying salt workers overtook us on the Au Soleil Couchant access road, and Molly gave chase. The people inside were amused (she is pretty comical), and obviously she couldn't do any harm, but it it is a bad habit and she will have to be broken of it. It didn't help that the driver slowed down to a crawl, so that he was effectively leading us as a kind of parade float. When we got to the junction that heads to the long and winding road he went south and so I naturally went north. Not the best way to make a choice, but whatever - I'm a pragmatist. I did have to lay out a pretty decent sprint to catch the van from the point where I realized what was happening, so we were really flying by the time we turned the corner. Several kilometers later, way out in the middle of nowhere, after we had come to the end of the long and winding road and were heading back on the road from Xixim we ran into a HUGE bull and two cows, just sort of chilling in the wilderness. Again, Molly was one of the bark-leaders, and AGAIN I laid out a halfway respectable 100m sprint to run them down and stop them from being assholes; there's not much they could do to those cows, but it is a bad habit. Elewah, Molly and Posey all contributed to the effort. I put Posey on the leash and once again we flew down that road. Coming home, I was starting to feel all of those sprints, on top of the already high pace, so I decided to take the dead goat short cut and ford that charco, which everyone did enthusiastically. There were a couple more people in various places along the way, and I noticed that I really wished Molly was on the hook, even though she isn't bad - if you didn't know her you might be intimidated by her, and we can't have that. Finally, at the very end, right at our gate Posey and Truman indulged in their old habit of taking off like jackrabbits for the house to the north, which they haven't done in a while. I honestly don't know how they had the energy after a brutal pace for 10k, but that little stunt landed them in the box immediately after coming in, where they stayed for 20m or so. Unacceptable, even though no harm was done. You can't live by "no harm, no foul" all the time. In spite of all of that, it was for the most part a fun, quick-paced tear through the woods. If Molly had been on the harness it would've been much better; she cannot go out without it again, we have to nip this in the bud.
GRADE: C
morning run:
Shirley
Blue
Osita
Rita
Frijolita
Ernie
Maggie
Lily
(8)
Ernie surprised a guy and his kid close by on the shrimpery trail just out of the gate, so he really can't leave off the leash for a while again. No harm done, but he's generally too wound up. We did the long and winding road backwards, which was long for Maggie; she pulled through like a trooper, but it did drag our pace down a bit. Other than right at the start everyone was good and had a good time. Lily listens especially well. I had her on the leash several times just to reign her in because Maggie was lagging too far behind, and she was really good about it.
GRADE: B
morning run:
Alice
Lucy
Ginger
Henry
George
Ziggy
Monkey
Molly
(8)
Nice group. It was a misty, foggy morning, the remnants of which were still clinging to the ground when we left. It made the first few kms of the run strange and beautiful... we could see spider's webs and bird's nests outlined everywhere around us, and the cows took on a surreal and fantastic air. We probably ran between 8-9km, mainly a southern route designed to avoid xmul. By the time we hit the southern land bridge most of the fog had burned off. The monte is drying out more each day, but there are still places you simply cannot go any way but on foot. Everyone was good and had a good time. Monkey and Molly especially like running together. At the very end Molly got a little too enthused over the cows, who were right there at the shrimpery intersection; still, she broke it off and came back to me reasonably quickly.
GRADE: A
morning run:
Oscar
Otto
Archie
Chester
Eve
Rufus
Ernie
Jack
(8)
What a good group. The harness more or less did its magic again with Rufus at the gate. Sadly, I forgot what an idiot Ernie is when I got this little band together, especially at the start. The best one-word description I can arrive at is gibbering, which is the attitude he maintained for the first 200 meters; he really wanted to go out the land bridge route. Frequently I find that discretion is not only the better part of valor, it's only part that matters. In keeping with that concept I try not to be an unreasoning fascist, although I do generally enforce and promote the notion that it is my run and the dogs are all with me. If they really want to do something and it's no big deal we often do it. Thus, we went Ernie's way, but with him and Rufus on either end of the leash for a bit, just to get them to calm down. We went south to the chappa'hai and into the monte, then all the way north via the palapa-on-stilts road, to the hidden trail, south down the beach, back into the monte at Au Soleil Couchant and home via the monte: 10k according to Google Earth. With this group we absolutely flew, hardly stopping and only briefly when we did. It was chilly out and a little cloudy, so nobody felt much need for water, and everyone really wanted to air it out. The beach was disgusting. The mountains of seaweed that have been piled up by successive storms have gotten grosser and grosser as the ocean has chewed and pawed at them for days. I was planning on rinsing Eve off (rolled in poo), but none of us wanted to go in there, and the poo stink was honestly preferable, so we got off the beach quickly and I took a hose to Eve (and Chester) when we got home. Jack is an angel.
GRADE: A
morning run:
Bette
Gracie
Blue
Godzilla
Gowron
Frankie
Elewah
Lily
(8)
Numberwhang. We did the current long run of record: long and winding road backwards, but then north to Playa Maya via the inland route, south on the beach to Au Soleil Couchant and home in the monte. A little over 14k. It's overcast, cold and windy today, which made it easier; also, this group was built to fly, not just run, so we did it quickly to boot. I decided to go all the way to the beach when Blue rolled in something I will not name, well down the long and winding road bit of the program; I washed her off in the frigid ocean, much to her and my chagrin. The ~2km stretch down the beach was murder. There was no patch of solid sand anywhere, since the norte blowing through right now has been vigorously plowing mountains of seaweed under for the last 24 hours. It was like some kind of Kung Fu movie training montage, pounding our way through soft, shifting, treacherous sand into the teeth of a fierce wind with the ocean raging right next to us, digging the ground out beneath our feet. We were all relieved to get off of the beach and back into the monte at A.S.C. - it felt like a great weight had been lifted, and we fairly flew the last ~3km home from there. I had to put Lily on the leash a couple of times because she's just too fast and gets too far ahead, but she listens well and never did anything wrong. P.S. I just re-read this post and have to add one thing: Gowron, one of our littlest dogs, with tiny little legs, has got to get some kind of medal or special notice for throwing down 14+k with the big dogs and making it look not just easy, but fun. She is solid muscle and attitude. Amazing. How can I ever complain when I look down and see this tearing up the road beside me? (she's not much bigger than that now)
GRADE: A
morning run:
Alice
Lucy
Ginger
George
Ernie
Ziggy
Monkey
Molly
(8)
Ziggy eight. I tried to quiet him with the hose before we left, but as infuriating as his incessant whining is, having insufficient water pressure to even moisten him in our own yard is that much more so; in the end it just leaves me wet and angry and he doesn't seem to notice either. Once we finally left he was an angel. Ernie started out on the leash, which is a good idea: he is a porky little missile, hell-bent on chaos when we're fresh out of the gate. Once we get going he settles down, much like Rufus. This was probably around 9k again, via southern trails, and everyone did well. George got the lion's share of the water, but he did keep up. The sisters did less screwing around than usual, and everyone listened well when I said anything, which was rare. No flamingos now in the charcos, but lots of egrets and other large-ish water fowl. We saw no people whatsoever. The monte is really starting to dry out now, but the land bridge is STILL under a foot or two of water in most places.
GRADE: A
afternoon walk:
Zasu
Reggie
(2)
Dolphin boy and fatty dingle took Roni around the cow pasture. Reggie was on the leash the whole way, and probably would've requested it so if asked, that's how good a boy he is.
GRADE: A
morning run:
Oscar
Otto
Archie
Chester
Rufus
Truman
Posey
Frijolita
(8)
Let's just skip the excuses-for-8 portion of today's program. The best answer thus far to Rufus-at-the-gate is the big, black harness, which I recently fished out of the outdoor sink and sort of rehabilitated. Sort of. I had to adjust it while he had it on because wrangling him to that point had been tiring enough, but in the end it fits him and works. He cannot get out of it, at least not with his usual barrage of maneuvers and pranks. The second he feels he's on the hook, he stops barking and calms down a bit, which makes leaving much easier. I had him on and off the leash throughout the course of the run, and will continue to do that with him. I also had Posey and Truman on the leash at various points (running ahead too far and not coming back as quickly as they should). We did the long and winding road backwards again, with a little extra on the way home; I'm sure it was over 10k. We did it quickly, due in part to the strong but pleasant chill in the air when we left (~7.30). At one point within the first 3k Posey took off ahead and got about 60-80m ahead of me, dragging Truman and Rufus with her. I had to yell to get them to stop and turn around, but they did come all the way back to me in the end. It turns out there were people getting ready to go to work in the charcos just around the bend, so it was probably their voices that got Posey going in the first place. By the time we passed them Rufus was on the hook and everyone was with me, but I don't like being made to yell like that. Otherwise all good. Fun, fast group, if a bit rambunctious.
GRADE: B
afternoon walk:
Miles
Zasu*
Tuesday*
Henry*
Tito*
(5)
Started out complicated, ended up simple. The ones with stars after their names behaved badly out of the gate, to an unforgivable degree and via a sort of cascade of misdemeanors. The fun started with Tuesday twisting herself out of her collar and taking off like a lunatic and snowballed. Out of all of them, Miles really wanted to go for a walk and didn't misbehave, so Roni put everyone else back in and just continued on with Miles for what turned out to be a nice walk.
GRADE: C
morning run:
Bette
Gracie
Eve
Osita
Frankie
Ernie
Lily
Molly
(8)
Yeah, yeah, eight, damn. Ernie's fat. Molly's fat. This was a pretty good group, but not great, mainly due to Ernie's mania. He's just out of his fat little mind. Although everyone generally did very well and had a good time, there were a couple points where I was unhappy with Ernie (running too far ahead, being too much of an idiot), Molly (running ahead, barking a bit too much at a truck although it was in good fun), and Lily (running ahead). All of them do listen, though, and they all come back to me all the way without fighting me when I make them. Ernie and Lily were both on the leash for stretches, and that helped. Molly really needs leash training, and that's not the first time I've said that here. We left early today and did the long and winding road backwards, which is basically 10k. It was cold last night and well into the morning; those first ~2km hurt on bare feet, but everyone was invigorated by the chill and it seemed like we really ran it quickly. Ernie seemed especially quick, and we had more than a half of the water left when we got home.
GRADE: B
morning run:
Alice
Rita
Posey
Blue
Godzilla
Shirley
Reggie
Monkey
(8)
Eight is starting to become a little too common, but it's been a throw-a-fatty-on-the-fire kind of situation every time of late. Today it was Alice, who (along with her sisters) really needed it; also, I've found that she keeps up better and doesn't screw around as much without her sisters around (especially Lucy). We did a fairly long southern run, probably a little over 9k: across the still-flooded land bridge, south down the main road to the last exit east, into the monte and north on the stilt palapa road to the Au Soleil Couchant access road, and home in the monte. By the time we got home the beach was already stinking from the red tide-like seaweed we've been having, so I'm glad we avoided it. I had to put Shirley on the leash a couple of times because she was just too far ahead, but nobody misbehaved and everyone had a good time.
GRADE: A
morning run:
Alice
Lucy
Ginger
George
Gowron
Maggie
Ziggy
Monkey
(8)
Good group. Did the southern ~9k, and reasonably quickly too for this bunch. There was some swimming in the still-flooded charcos near the end. Everyone had a good time.
GRADE: A
morning run:
Oscar
Otto
Archie
Chester
Rufus
Ernie
Molly
Elewah
(8)
Felt pressed for time, but we hadn't gone in two days so I decided it was just one of those days to take the pace up and air it out. We did the long and winding road with very few stops; Ernie drank most of the water, and was lagging a little at the end, but still really pushed through admirably. Everyone else was in their glory and ran like gazelles. It was chilly and overcast, so that helped keep the pace up.
GRADE: A
