My goal was to run 10.5 miles, but I had to detour around a gate blocking the canal road and ended up with additional mileage. The property used by the canal road is owned by the local property owners -- the canal company only has a right of way. One farmer wants his cows to graze on both sides of the canal, and during the late fall, winter, and early spring when the canal has no water, he closes a gate so his cows can cross the canal. I was expecting this and had my detour all figured out.
I got pretty tired on the way back and walked/jogged the last two miles. I haven't run much during the past two weeks due to working on the ground for my new barn. The barn was installed yesterday, and I'm hoping to get back to my normal running. My wakeup HR was 52.
On the way back, I saw two big dogs in the middle of the road. I ran towards them and stopped when they were about 30 feet away. They didn't bark or wag their tail; they just looked at me, and I just looked at them. I thought to myself, "Now, what do I do?" I said, "Hello dog!", and the biggest of the two immediately started wagging his tail and walked to me. I let him sniff my hand (keeping my fist clenched so if he tried to bite me he would have to bite my whole fist instead of just my fingers)so he would know I was "ok", and then I petted him. As soon as I started petting him, the other dog started walking toward us. The big dog walked a few feet away, and the other dog immediately stopped. I whistled to the big dog, and he came back for more petting. When the other dog saw that, he walked to us and joined our petting fun. They were very friendly dogs. I was worried they might follow me home, but they didn't.
Don't you hate that? The moment of indecision when coming up to unknown dogs...I mean, sometimes they bark and then they're friendly, other times they don't do anything but look at you, still other times they look right at you and don't bark and then chase the begeezus out of you. Dogs are crazy sometimes.
ReplyDeleteHi Matt, that was a moment of indecision because the dog just looked at me. I expect them to bark or do something, but that one just stared. I was glad when he started wagging his tail and projected a friendly image :) When I meet a strange dog, I watch their ears. As long as the ears are upright, the dog is probably ok. But, if the ears lay back on its head, I get very nervous. In 33 years of running, I've never had a problem with dogs, but there was one dog that did make me nervous :)
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