They Move In Packs

Today, I took the Captain to the dog park. It's only a few blocks away, and my knee was feeling all right after I took a few ibuprofen.

At first I was pretty nervous since his only interactions with other dogs thus far have been pretty limited, but the lady who was there with her yellow lab said to let him off the leash to go meet the other dogs and see how it worked out.

He was very timid and his hackles kept going up from his neck all the way to his tail, but it got a lot better as he got used to the other dogs. There were about six of them, coming and going at various times, and together they managed to just about wear the Captain out. He was ripping around the enclosure with three or four other animals on his heels in no time, playing little dancy-games and generally being silly.

Eventually the fight went out of him, so I dragged him reluctantly away from his new friends. He's been a calm, docile little citizen since we got home (although I think he stole the cat's food again when I was out of the room. Still working on that).

There were box elder bugs everywhere today, but they were nothing compared to the plague ofladybugs that appeared en masse to bite the living shit out of me. I can't believe I used to think those little bastards were pretty. From now on I'm going to treat them like especially slow-moving mosquitoes.

Also, the Cannon river is flooding in areas, so the Captain also got to go swimming where a few days ago there was a biking path along the banks.

Happy soaking wet animal-dog.