City Walks

Walking in the city is not all that bad.  Now when I say city, I don't mean NYC or Birmingham.  I mean "the hood", where I walk past the 7-11 and Jake can smell the slurpees, urine, and my fear.  I'm not one to drive to some place so I can walk and get exercise, although I occasionally do, and plan to this week.  This stubborness and tight scheduling leaves me to have to walk in and out of my own neighborhood.  We see lots of other dogs, sometimes we actually encounter them which is scary for both of us.

Last week, we took Sugary with us and some interesting things about the city.  It's all what you make it, you know?  If you want your part of the city to be beautiful and safe, you can make it happen.  As we start our walk, we come to a small bar and grill and this is what they allow their part of the sidewalk to look like:

Can you see the disgust in Jake's face?  He does not think this is a trash can, but many others did.  I doubt he'd even "use the facilities" here. 

Then we walked down just one block, and came to the property owned by Chase Bank.  Big difference.

Good to see our interest payments have went to something pretty! 

Fresh rain water in the bank parking lot.

That hit the spot!  Now smile for the security cameras!

Same street, eye-shots of eachother and such a big difference! 

On the same route, but a different day, we invited my daughter to ride her bike along with us on our walk.  We found these little sweeties in the front yard of someone's house.  In the city.  In our neighborhood! 

The pointer genes in Jake we aroused as he sniffed out "Rocky and Bulwinkle" that day.  We revisited them today. 

City walks are kind of a necessity for us, since we do live there.  I pray for safety as we walk, and I enjoy showing off my non-pitbull dog to the neighbors.

First Entry

It's hard to look this guy in the eyes and say, "no, we are not going walking today."

What more motivation do I need?  It's good for me.  It's good for him.  Let's go! 

Today we went to Orion Oaks Bark Park, in Lake Orion, MI.  We had been here many times after adopting Jake in 2005.  He loved meeting new friends, swimming, fetching.  After we had our daughter a year later, Jake had to protect his pack, and any dog coming in our pack's space was not welcome.  He's a good boy, how can you doubt it?  I'm working slowly to re-socialize him, and our new puppy, Sugary, has helped. 

Today's outing was mostly a success, although Jake did stay on his leash with me most of our visit, except his dip in Lake Sixteen.

 I'm hopeful.  He has no expectations. He's a old, beautiful soul.  I want him to see his world.

Where should we go tomorrow?