New Olympic Event

Walking two dogs with retractable leashes can be a challenge. When one of those dogs is Maddie, the challenge rivals most Olympic events. While Ray stays mostly on an even keel, Maddie is a zoomer. Back-to-front, side-to-side; if there is a direction that she can go, she's going. 

So I have found that there are three main things that I need to focus on while walking Ray and Maddie together:

1.  Keep Ray from peeing on Maddie's head.  

• I don't want anyone to think that Ray is maliciously trying to pee on Maddie. It's just that sometimes when Ray is leaving an LOL in response to a pee-mail, Maddie, who is a slow reader, hasn't quite gotten to the punchline and still has her head down. I'm surprised she doesn't have whiplash from the force with which I jerk her out of the way.  

2.  Keep Maddie from eating random things off of the ground. 

• Maddie is the scrounging-est dog I've ever met. She will eat anything remotely resembling food and must be watched like a hawk. (Sandra has stories that will curl your hair - the one that sticks in my mind is about Maddie and a package of chocolate Ex-Lax). 

3.  Keep Ray from running over the top of Maddie. 

• Maddie has finally started to learn, that when she hears the jingle of Ray's tags coming up behind her, to look over her shoulder and see which side she needs to move to avoid being run over. Sometimes she forgets. 

     3a.  Keep Maddie from hog-tying Ray when I screw up on number 3. 

• That happened today. Ray looked somewhat like a trussed turkey by the time Maddie was done with him. I hope nobody was watching.