The Good Wife Chronicles: Walking the Terrible Twins

As I'm putting on their harnesses and attaching their leashes every night,

I imagine that our daily walk with look something like this:

But it usually looks a little more like this:

And last night was one of those walking adventures I will probably never erase from memory. Ever. 

The dogs sat at the door, patiently waiting like they always do. I put on their leashes and told them if they were good we could go on a "really long walk." And they both looked at me like they were going to behave. But I should have known better. Because less than five minutes into our walk, we passed by a man and his dog. And my dogs, well, my dogs decided this was the time to act up. "Looks like you need a sled there," he hollered as he pet his sweet dog who just sat there calmly. Like I haven't heard that a million times before. He looked at the Terrible Twins and then to me. And I knew that look. It's the look I give to people in Wal-Mart when their children are misbehaving. The one that says, "Control your wild offspring." Only this time, I was on the receiving end of that look. And I did not like it. But somehow we managed to calm the dogs down. They looked like semi-normal dogs for about half a minute. Then Zailey decided to run an jump as fast as she could. She pulled my mother down an embankment as the man scoffed. Oh, it was so embarrassing. At that point, we really should have just gone home. But, no, I was too determined to finish our walk.

A few minutes up the road, the dogs, who had settled down enough to allow us a few minutes to catch our breath, decided that it was time to dance. They pulled, they weaved, they criss-crossed. It. Was. A. Nightmare. You should have seen my mother and me. It looked like we were dancing a very badly choreographed dance. There was a lot of spinning and leaping. I wish I could say it was graceful spinning and leaping. But it was more like watching a train wreck. How we managed to not get tangled up is a beyond me. I sure hope the cars passing by enjoyed the show. We probably could have made a fortune if we had advertised a comedy sketch featuring two Siberian Huskies who decide to use humans as their sled. We went home penniless, however.

To be honest, I'm not sure how we made it as far as we did. But we walked quite far with the Terrible Twins. And then we headed home exhausted and completely worn out. 

Our walk home was going quite well. A little too well for us. And I should have known everything would fall apart when we made it to the stop sign. Listen, I'm terrified of crossing the street at a four-way stop. I never know what to do. Do I take initiative and make all the cars wait while I cross? Past experience says that's a bad idea. Because there's always one person who doesn't want to wait for us and guns their car as fast as they can when we're halfway through the cross walk. The other option is just to wait. Niko loves crossing the street and pulls like a mad man, which in turn causes Zailey to pull because she thinks they're racing. It just never ends well. So, after our last 45 minutes of ups and downs, I decided we were just going to wait. We stood back as three cars approached, signifying the universal code that says, "Hey, we're just going to wait here for a while." Two cars received the code and went through without a problem. Then there was the third. We waited and waited and waited. We did not make eye contact. Eye contact tells them you want to cross. Yes, past experience taught me that, too. All the car had to do was go through the intersection so we could be on our way. But, no, that did not happen. Whoever was inside the darkly tinted truck laid on their horn as loud as they could. I shook my head. I have two dogs who are both sensitive to noise. Wait...aren't most dogs? Anyway, why on earth people feel the need to honk, whistle, scream, and rev their engines as they come within 25 feet of me while I'm trying to exercise my dogs is a mystery to me. So I did the wave. The one that says, "I'm letting you know that I heard your obnoxiously loud honk and I'm going to cross the road, but I do not consider this a good deed in any way." As I expected, the rude truck gunned it before we made it halfway through the crosswalk and sped off down the road. I will never understand why people get angry at us for not crossing the street with our dogs because we want to be safe. Especially when it's nighttime. But to each their own.

Somehow, we managed to make it home last night in one piece. Thank goodness! My husband took the dogs swimming at the lake this afternoon so they're staying home tonight. No walking. I really am grateful for the break. Walking two Siberian Huskies is really a chore sometimes. But it's always a chore I don't mind doing.