13.06.13

morning run:
Alice
Frijolita
Godzilla
George
Otto
Archie
Ernie
Tori
(8)

To the beach at Au Soleil Couchant via the swimming hole: ~7k. We left reasonably early but the bugs were already hammering us whenever we stopped by the time we got to the tortuga crossroads on the way out. Tori showed me she understands what "hold up" means every time I told her to hold up, which I did often to keep her honest; she's learning quickly but I still put her on the leash sometimes just for balance. We ran into many salt workers on motos on their way to work as we were heading towards the beach on the Au Soleil Couchant road and everyone was perfect. We also ran into a large group of fishermen with two boats in the middle of a big net-fishing exercise on beach right at Au Soleil Couchant; once again our dogs were perfect but I put Tori on the leash until we were past them mainly to show the fishermen that I was in control (a foreign concept to them). I watched Archie and Ernie carefully throughout because they've both had problems with limps after runs etc.; both did very well, showed no signs of lagging or limping and in fact were really up for it. We'll see how they are in a couple of hours. On another note: there was a stray pup stuck in one of the big concrete tank structures on the corner at the shrimpery last night; I went up there and left a board as a ramp for it to try and get out when we realized what the noise was all about (making ours howl) but she didn't use it and was still there this morning on our way out. I ended up going back after the run and getting her out; she was not interested in using a ramp at all so I had to coax her into trusting me and then picked her up and put her on the lip of the tank. Once I showed her where the stairs were she trotted off towards the soldiers' where I'm pretty sure her pack-mates hang out. We think she's the offspring of the little black and white female that has been hanging around at the soldiers' and elsewhere on the beach. I doubt she'll repeat that stunt as it was highly unpleasant (the bugs are unreal over there).
GRADE: A