30.10.13

morning run:
Posey
Blue
Molly
Xmul
Mega
Steve McQueen
Hazel
Murci
(8)

To the swimming hole: ~6k (+5k afterwards=11k for me). This run was nearly perfect until the end. We left with Xmul on the leash; I let her off at the swimming hole to play but put her back on by the time we got to the road. Murci was really great the whole way - played with her buddies, swam like a lunatic and stuck close to me. Unfortunately she is skittish around people, something I wasn't really aware of until it was too late. On our way out there was nobody in any of the charcos nearby; I took us home on the blue bag trail with the intention of putting Murci on the other end of the leash by the time we got to the coco trail, but was surprised to find a large group of salt workers around the wood shack. I didn't pay enough attention to Murci's reaction, which turned out to be to turn around and bolt for the woods. When I realized she wasn't with us I turned us all around and went back to find her but she was gone. I decided I should get the rest of them home and maybe I would run into Murci somewhere along the way... no dice, she wasn't there. I got everyone put away (ignoring the deliveryman who had arrived with our new stove, which was kind of dumb) and headed back out to find her. I thought she was probably in the woods between the wood shack and the next road over to the east so I headed out the dead goat trail only to find THAT road also blocked completely by an ambitious salt-loading operation - lots of noise, people, machines and bags of salt completely blocking the road, none of which had been there an hour earlier. Since I now realized that both roads home from where we had been had lots of noisy workers on them I thought maybe she had headed for the beach instead. I went home to make sure she wasn't there already and headed north on the beach all the way to the tortuga sign, cut into the monte and went back to the intersection with the tortuga road and the salt worker road where we had been earlier, looking for her tracks the whole way. I ended up circling all the way back to the intersection, calling her name the whole while, and then back around to the tortuga crossroads and back home through all those trails we had been on earlier. By the time I got home she had arrived, beating me by 15 minutes. She must've circled around in the monte kind of like I had but with a head start on me and through the brush instead of on a trail. I thought she must've been scared by all the people, machines and noise in the woods but Roni thought she would find her way home and she was right - Murci is smart and likes it here. If I hadn't had Xmul I would've had Murci on the leash so I should remember that. Murci also needs to get used to salt workers and vehicles in the monte.
GRADE: C (all my fault)

afternoon walk:
Twiggy
Luna
MoMo
(3)

Martina took these three chuckleheads out for an outing on the beach and they were all good.
GRADE: A