Psychotomy

K hasn’t been to his daycamp in over three months. It’s a nuisance, b/c he IS a jack russell. Parson Russell. Whatever.

So we were taking him to the dog park. Our original trainer, who used to watch him when we were out of town (because there was no petshotel at the time and we dislike plain kennels), took him there a few times and he loved it, apparently. It’s only been 4 years since she moved away. We finally got around to registering K with the county and getting him a pass for the park. That was working well, I throw his lacrosse ball around for 30-60 minutes, he gets tired out, everythings decent. He doesn’t lke hanging with the big dogs, so we’re usually down by ourselves in the small dog area. But that’s fine, I don’t really care.

Of course, two months ago, DST ended. Which means it’s now dark when I get home at five. The park is open 7am to dusk. 15-20 minutes to gethere during traffic, and it’s going to be well dark and closed. So we go out to the soccer fields. November sucked for that, b/c the fields are used by the young NFL or whatever and they had games and practices at 6pm every night. And they’d turn on their gas generator floodlights any time after 5. K, not a fan of the gas generators. Which meant we were done when they came out.

But they ended. And things were OK for a few weeks. I’d get home, take him out and throw a tennis ball for an hour or so, he’d get run down. It wasn’t optimal, but it worked. And now it’s winter. He doesn’t like getting cold. When we start up, he runs hell bent for leather, as it were, and gets a lot of running and bolting. For about 15 minutes. Then he settles into a groove. Instead of galloping, bolting, and racing, he starts to trot. And just like a horse, it’s a ground eating, energy saving, trot. Which Is probably why it takes an hour or so normally to run him out. 20 minutes high burn , 30-60 more on slow burn. But it’s cold, right? And that energy saving trot? It doesn’t generate as much heat, b/c it’s saving energy right? Which means K starts to get cold. He’ll start running the ball past me, ~2-6′. Slowly walking me back towards the edge of the fields and the path home.

It’s not that it’s dark. Yeah, he’ll lose it occasionally if I throw it just as he looks the wrong direction, then we go out to find it together. As long as I can see, he’s always still been happy to play. But it’s COLD. And wtf wants to be out freezing their ass off? He’s not dumb. He wants to go home where it’s WARM.

What does this all mean? It means that from December until probably February (and mid-June to August, for heat) he’s inside and hyper. Barking at this, running around there, not settling down at all. It’s to the point where I have to put him out the baby gate after a while in the evening and just tell him to go upstairs. And if he keeps barking and whining at us, kiir ends up playing with the printer which makes him run up. I mean, I think he’s running away from it, which means basically we’re torturing him every couple nights for our own pleasure :(

I feel really bad about it, but he doesn’t want to play outside long enough for the park to even be worthwhile, he doesn’t want to run down on the fields, and the whining and barking gives me a serious headache. And I have a headache most evenings by the time I get home anyway :(

Posted in: k-line by attriel /