Falmouth Road Race

I got my notification today that I was selected in the 2013 lottery to run the Falmouth Road Race!  Yay!  I knew it was coming because I was not selected last year, which guarantees entry for the following year, but it's still exciting to receive the notice!  The race is scheduled for 8/11/2013, and is run by one of the Boston Marathon's race directors. I live in a pretty small place, so there aren't usually too many spectators at a road race.  At Falmouth, there are people along the sides of the road for the entire 7 miles!

I have run this race for 4 or 5 years, and it is always a blast.  I have never gotten a great time, but have had so much fun, I sign up every year.  Last year, I did not get selected and was crushed!  When my customers at my Saturday restaurant job found out, someone called around and found a number for me for a woman that wasn't able to run.  I felt bad running under someone else's name, but at least it was the right sex!  The strange thing was, I had become settled with the idea of not running, but then felt obligated to run with the number provided.  The family that provided me with the number had me meet them at their house, provided me with a ride to and from the race, and even offered me breakfast.  They were so nice!  Their son ran also, and he was super fast!

In other news, due to recent thunderstorms in our area, the other dog has woken me up 2 nights in a row to get his Thunder Shirt.  He is so silly.  After we bought it, my boyfriend laughed at me for weeks about the waste of money.  Then, the morning after a storm, I told him that I thought the dog had woken me up to get his shirt....he laughed some more!  Well, it has now been a few years, and he will wake me every time to get his shirt.  He sleeps on our bed, and putting the shirt on him is the only way to get him back in bed.  Without the shirt, he paces, drools, and tries to hide in the basement and the bathroom.  With the shirt, he will get back in bed, with tremors still, but at least we can sleep!  Here is a recent picture...please notice Lucy snoozing away next to him!  Nothing scares Lucy but the turkeys!

Lucy's 2nd road race

On Sunday, Lucy and I ran a 5k with a friend of her's, Otis.  Otis is Lucy's uncle in some weird, twisted way.  We got our other dog from the people who bred Otis.  The people who got our other dog's sister bred the dog, which was Lucy's litter.  They look so much alike that we frequently get them confused! Lucy is on the right in the picture below.

Anyway, this was Otis' owner's first 5k since giving birth a few months ago.  She did great!  I stayed with her till a little after the halfway point, but Lucy was going faster than all of us, so we ran a bit ahead.  We saw some friends and their kids walking and stopped to say hi, and wait for Otis.  We didn't see him, so we started running again.  This race was along the roads that Lucy and I run on a regular basis, so she was a little confused as to why we were in the road and not the sidewalk.  We finished, in an unstupendous 29:38, and waited for Otis and his owner, who finished pretty quickly after us.

This race was at 11 AM, and it was HOT out!  We were giving the dogs water, and talking to friends, when a guy walked over with Otis and said "I think you may have dropped this!"  My friend thought she was giving Otis water, not Lucy, and had let go of his leash!  Thank goodness he didn't go too far, and is super friendly!  Lucy was tired the rest of the day, and I think it might be the last time we run this race together.  It is just too late in the day, and too warm for her, even though we both had fun!

Do you know how hard it is to get 2 dogs in a crowd of people to pose for a cute picture?? Much harder than I thought!

Friday surprise

On Friday,  I fought with Lucy for around an hour trying to get her back in the house.  I think she knows she shouldn't be in the mulch,  so she sat right next to it,  but she wouldn't come in the house.  At least she looked cute while being bad!

When my boyfriend came home from work,  he surprised me with a framed print.  He got it at a gallery he was working near,  the POLi gallery in Provincetown. It was a nice surprise,  and made me forget how mad I was at Lucy during the day!

The ball

About 3 years ago, we bought the other dog a soccer ball sized ball for dogs. It was covered in a blue fabric and squeaks when squished.  The other dog wasn't really into it, but we didn't get rid of it.  When kids came over, they loved to kick the ball around the yard, and the other dog would chase it.  He just wouldn't really bring it back.  Fetch has no meaning for him.

And then we got Lucy.....

Lucy is obsessed with the blue ball.  When it snows, the blue ball is the first thing Lucy looks for.  She would dig for hours just to get the blue ball.  She has the ability to find the blue ball anywhere, but she can't find a dog biscuit if you drop it on the floor in front of her!  We bought another blue ball for inside the house, but it just wasn't the same.  We have discussed throwing it away (while washable, it stinks!), but hadn't done it quite yet.  

 

We recently had a large storm.  Knowing it was coming, I picked up all the dog toys in the yard and locked them in the shed....except for the blue ball.  Honestly, I was kinda hoping it would blow away!  The day before the storm, something I ordered in a moment of weakness arrived in the mail....the yellow ball.  I didn't give, or even show Lucy the yellow ball.  I planned on throwing away the blue ball and replacing it with the yellow one, but I wasn't sure how it would go over.  When the storm came, the blue ball disappeared into the snow.  We then, unknowingly, piled more snow over it.  The blue ball was gone, and kids were here.  I gave in and took out the yellow ball.  It was like the blue ball all over again!  She would carry it all over the yard, lie down and use it as a pillow, bring it right to the door and leave it outside.  This would be my chance to get rid of the blue ball...but where was it???  Still under all the snow!

Today, over a week past all the snow, the blue ball appeared again amidst the melting snow.  Goodbye yellow ball, you are no longer good enough for Lucy.  The blue ball is back as though it were never gone.  It looks a little worse for wear, and I don't know how much longer it will last, but I don't have the heart to throw it away anymore.  The blue ball is back for as long as it can hang on.  Welcome back, blue dog ball.  Lucy has missed you!

Blizzard style

No running or gym for us today! Just lots and lots of shoveling! Lucy mistakenly thinks she is a sled dog and never wants to come in!

The cardboard chronicles...

Several months ago, Lucy ran into an incident. Said incident involved her eating enough cardboard(industrial, not pizza box variety!) that she required surgery.  She came out looking a little Frankensteinish, with a foot long incision running across her belly.

2 weeks go by with no running, jumping, etc., and I return to the vet to have her staples removed. She wasn't very happy about this, but seemed cheerful enough.  Back to the insane Lucy that we know and love! Still no running with me, as I had some neck issues going on AND didn't want to push my luck with Frankengut.

A month goes by, with me checking her belly every few days.  All looks good...until the day it didn't. One Sunday, a month after the surgery, I rolled her over to find several pink welts and a couple cuts. 2 visits to the vet later, I was told that her body was rejecting internal stitches.  There were 3 layers to her incision, with 2 layers stitched shut and 1 stapled. Lucy's body didn't like the material they closed her up with, so it was forcing it out of her body. Antibiotics, here we come!

Now, all the pills are gone.  When I rolled her over yesterday, she now has a few clear pieces of string coming out. The vet has given me the ok to just cut them off.  I will do just that, as soon as I figure out how to get a maniac 2 year old golden retriever to sit still long enough for me to go near the softest part of her with sharp scissors!

She isn't wearing the inflatable cone anymore...she popped it shortly after getting her staples removed!