Our pup is apparently not quite ready for state park trails. We took her to Nerstrand State Park which is pretty conveniently close to where we live. It has a “Hidden Falls,” which have a pretty well marked visible trail to them, so I guess they’re not so hidden anymore. But it was pretty cool. The dog, however, treated the entire experience like she was working security at a prison yard.
I think she has leash anxiety. At the dog park, she’s great. She runs up to other dogs, makes friends, and has the time of her life. Put her on a leash though, and suddenly every dog within a hundred feet is a major threat that absolutely must be barked and growled at immediately. She gets frustrated that she can’t go say hi and comes off looking like a big murderous psychopath.
The online advice is pretty unhelpful. “Just keep a good distance.” Sure. Let me just ask everyone else on this narrow hiking trail to head back to the parking lot until my dog finishes processing her emotions. So I think trail walks are going to have to be dogless for a while until we figure out how to get her to settle the hell down.
Dog walks around the neighborhood can be as stressful as the state park walk was. Up the block there’s a house with two huge dogs of some sort, and they are outside at seemingly all hours. To avoid walking by this house I have to give up having a sidewalk to walk on.
What’s funny is she couldn’t care less about thunderstorms or fireworks, which absolutely terrified our last dog. But another dog minding its own business fifty yards away? That’s DEFCON 1.
And don’t even get me started on her prey drive. We have rabbits around our house and she acts like she’s been personally assigned to eliminate every last one of them. The internet’s solution? “Get curtains.” Right. We’ll just seal up the house, close the blinds forever, and pretend the outside world no longer exists.
I’m hoping there’s better advice out there somewhere because she’s a sweetheart 95 percent of the time. It’s just that the other 5 percent is apparently dedicated to declaring war on rabbits and screaming at dogs. Otherwise things have been going well with her.
She does like to run off and knows how to open doors, so that’s also an issue. For a dog so worried about being by me all the time she sure does enjoy darting off to freedom. She’s smart though, so would probably find her way back home, but as you know this is a society and she needs to learn to stay here.
Maybe it’s because she’s a rescue that lived in some sort of unknown situation for almost a year, but I thought German Shepherds were supposed to be the easiest to train. I mean, these are the K-9 Unit dogs, right? I read that they are known to be “velcro dogs” and that’s proving to be quite accurate. She’s very concerned about my whereabouts at all times. I was replacing a stereo head unit in my car in the garage this weekend and had to figure out how to tie her up in the driveway because she was tearing up the house trying to figure out how to get to me. It’s a good thing I don’t travel for work much anymore.
There were some good moments with the dog on the trail, however. She jumped in the water and had a good time. The walk there seemed to go pretty well (but we didn’t run into any dogs on the way somehow). It was the walk back that just went really bad.
Listening to…
My Last.fm says I’ve been listening to a lot of Weezer and Sublime lately, which checks out. Those are permanent residents of my summer playlist. I’ve also been on a huge The Cure kick. Not really sure why. Sometimes your brain just decides, “Yep, we’re living in 1987 for a while.”
“Just Like Heaven” has somehow become a new favorite of mine. Funny how a song that’s 39 years old can suddenly feel brand new.
It’s not like I’d never heard it before. I’ve heard it plenty of times over the years. But I think I finally heard it in one of those moments where your brain quietly decides, “Hey, remember this forever.”
It was blasting through the speakers on a boat ride during our Florida trip this past spring. The sun was out, the ocean was sparkling, and we were absolutely hauling across the waves with the wind whipping around us. It was one of those scenes where everything lines up just right and a song permanently attaches itself to a memory.
It’s funny how music works like that. You can know a song for decades, and then one random day it walks back into your life and says, “Actually, we’ve never properly met.”
Watching…
I’ve been catching a couple of the World Cup games lately. The USA vs. Australia game the other day was a lot of fun. Competitive games are just better. Funny how that works.
I also watched most of the NASCAR race at San Diego. Going in, I wasn’t especially excited because there’s an Aussie driver named SVG. Yes, like the file format. And lately he treats road courses like they’re a video game he’s already beaten on expert mode. It almost feels like the rest of the field shows up not even trying anymore, hoping for second place.
Then I heard on the radio, which I am told is a dead medium these days, that SVG had crashed out. Suddenly I was invested. Sweet. We’ve got ourselves a race! So the tv version came back on, even though the MRN broadcast is so, so, so much better.
I recently listened to a Tony Stewart podcast where he talked about being called into the NASCAR trailer after a big win. According to Tony, Bill France Jr. told him he’d better quit “stinking up my show.” Basically, stop winning so much.
I’ve honestly wondered if somebody is eventually going to have that conversation with SVG. People like him, and I get it. The guy is ridiculously talented. But I refuse to believe I’m the only one who starts losing interest when the outcome feels inevitable.
I had the same problem during the Jimmie Johnson era. Nice guy. Great driver. Absolute legend. But after what felt like the 4,372nd win, I’d find myself thinking, “You know what? Maybe I’ll mow the lawn instead.”
I also meant to catch some of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb, but I kind of intentionally avoided it because the broadcast is just brutal. It’s somehow one of the coolest motorsports events on Earth paired with some of the least exciting television imaginable.
Ninety percent of the broadcast seems to be two people with questionable audio standing in front of a backdrop that looks like a regional bank commercial while talking endlessly about absolutely nothing while the actual race is happening somewhere else.
I love the event. I just can’t watch the coverage. It’s so bad.
I’ll have to make it back there in person someday. Because if you’re going to watch cars fling themselves up a mountain at terrifying speeds, you might as well do it where the air is thin and your life insurance agent can’t stop you.