Not as planned

This morning, it was sunny and about 4 C...my favourite weather to run in.  I decided to do the hilly route again.  It would take about 1:30, not including the 3.5-4 miles back home.  I didn't feel tired from yesterday's run and I had time.

Unfortunately, I was tired after all, but it was more of a general fatigue.   My breathing seemed sort of off; I wasn't congested, but I felt some tightness.   Fortunately, it wasn't supposed to be a tempo run.  So what if I had a crappy two-hour run?  It wouldn't be the first one.

Less than two miles into it, a little grey dog came running up.  It seemed friendly, but was very pushy, and I could tell that my dog was starting to get put off.  It kept jumping against his hindquarters, and he's not a fan of this.  So I shooed it away, hoping that it would go back to its home.

Instead, it ran ahead of us for a few minutes.  At first, I thought that it was used to being loose and that it had a wide territory, but as we approached a faster (45 mph) road, I started to realize that it was running a bit too wild.  It's hard to explain: some dogs are smart and experienced, but this didn't seem to be one of them.  Instead of following a routine (and, boy, dogs love their routines), it was just dashing about.

It was about 50 metres ahead of us and it crossed the 45 mph road without hesitation.  Ok, maybe it lived on the other side.  But when we got there, I could see it was still sort of dashing about aimlessly, so I coaxed it back to our side.  Thank goodness there wasn't much traffic.  It got close to us--it was still interested in my dog--and I grabbed it by the collar.  It tried to bite me, but fortunately it was slow in more ways than one, and it submitted easily.  I looked at the tags and there was one with a phone number, but I didn't have my phone on me.  So I bent over and walked the dog back to the smaller road; I decided that we'd run back down it and hopefully it would find its house.

Unfortunately, it slipped its collar soon after.  Did I ever hate myself then!  I called it and it came, thank goodness, and I slipped the collar back on and we turned onto the smaller road.  I expected it to run ahead again, but instead it dashed across the smaller road into a yard facing the faster road, and disappeared.

Uh, so I figured, there's no point in chasing a dog, but maybe if we run back down the smaller road, it would follow us, so I whistled and started, but it was gone.  I realized that it had perhaps rejoined the faster road, and I didn't even know if it lived on the smaller road anyway.  I shuffled for a few paces, trying to decide my next move, and then, amazeballs, the best moment ever.

An old guy in a pickup pulled up and asked about a little grey dog.  YES.  I said, right over there, I was trying to get it off the road, I'll show you.  So I cut across the yard and he pulled and turned ahead onto the faster road and caught his dog.  He yelled THANK YOU and I yelled back THANK GOODNESS.  I was so relieved.

So we resumed our run, even though I felt more drained.  We ran through another subdivision and there were some sort of loose dogs, but nothing major.  We got up the 2nd major hill and onto another fast road--at this point, we're about 5 miles and and an hour in.  I guess I burned a lot of time with that dog.  I was feeling wiped.  My dog wanted to pee, so we I stopped, and then I considered that we had still at least an hour to go, and my heart fell.  There weren't any more monster hills ahead, but some smaller ones, and two long inclines that I was more concerned about.

Nah.  I already felt cruddy enough.

So we turned around and went back.  Now, one of the sort of loose dogs we'd passed on the way over is a little dog that never goes off its yard--we've seen it a bunch of times and it honestly doesn't count as a loose dog.  When we passed the house next to it or one over, I'd heard a couple of other dogs barking, and I saw one of them, a large-ish pit mix or small mastiff, in the backyard.  I didn't recall seeing dogs there before, but it was cool.   However, when we were passing again on our way back, it was in the front yard, along with two other dogs.  Well, maybe they had an electric fence. 

We were walking at this point, and we were across the street, so we were less exciting.  Nevertheless, one of the small dogs started coming toward the road and us.   So, no electric fence. The big dog was just chilling in its yard though.  I thought, that's a smart dog.  It's satisfied with its own territory.

Well, all of them started following us, but still at a walk.  I picked up a large stick, just in case--I was worried about that large dog.  If it had been just the small ones, or if I'd been without my dog and if they'd stayed friendly, I could have walked them back to the house and hopefully someone would have been home, or maybe I could have relatched the gate to their backyard, if there was actually a proper complete fence...I don't know.  But the big dogs, the strange one and mine, busted that idea.  Maybe it would've been friendly with mine, maybe not, but I didn't want to break up a fight between the two of them on my own.   My dog isn't a fighter and gives plenty of warnings, but a few other dogs have bit him and pounced on him over the years...I have this vision of him finally snapping one day.  And he is quicker and stronger than most dogs out there.

We continued walking away.  The dogs meandered a good distance behind us, and another car pulled up.  A young woman asked me if I knew who owned them.  I told her, no, and she said that a small one had run right in front of her car.  I winced--I felt bad--and I told her that there have been a lot of loose dogs today.  People just let their dogs loose here.  I honestly think that the first little grey dog got out accidentally, like the three pugs did a few months ago, but most of these dogs are simply left free to roam.

But she didn't drive off.  She asked me again where they were from.  I said, maybe those houses back there, I didn't really know.  At this point, she was looking at me as though she was expecting more.  I should have explained my reasoning--no way I'm taking my dog onto the potential territory of a large dog whom I don't know.  I could have also told her what she could do instead of just stopping some random person with their own dog to worry about, but I was really tired, and I didn't think of it at the time, so I just shrugged.  Did she really expect me to go back there and wrangle three strange dogs?

You know, sometimes people know stuff should be done, and they try to shift this onto other people to assuage their guilt?   This seemed to be the situation, and I was starting to feel a little irritated.  She could have stopped, called the dogs over, and checked for phone numbers or addresses--like I did earlier that very run!  It's not rocket surgery. Or maybe she just wanted to hear "I'm sorry you were so startled by that dog running in front of you and I'll take care of it, don't worry, just go on your way and think you really did something special."  Probably she was still sort of in shock.

Well, I was being terribly unhelpful--I don't remember the other parts of the brief conversation, but I really couldn't think of much to tell her, so she drove off.  The car behind her was the post truck, and the postlady also asked me about the dogs.  I told her that we'd already been chased and we'd already rescued another dog this morning, and now we just had to get back home, and she laughed and drove off.  She probably sees more loose dogs every day than we do in a month.

But of course, I felt guilty about the three dogs all over another 45 mph road (fortunately, it was not busy either at that time), and so we headed back.  Not all the way, just enough to watch them cross the street back to the side we'd originally seen them, not that I had any idea if they'd actually belonged there.  Among the 10 (?) houses on that side of that stretch of road, there is the small yappy dog, the kind of scary German Shepherd that is occasionally loose, a sweet large white dog that is occasionally loose, and a really undergroomed and grimy large white dog (clearly not the same dog) that is also occasionally loose.  I had never seen the trio before.   Maybe they came from another planet.  Maybe they got loose, got into a pack zone, ranged far afield, and now were lost.

Well, this situation made me feel like shit.  I still have a headache.  I went home, showered, and considered driving out to check on them, but I didn't want to push my luck (for, really, I had come out on top: one happy reunion and no dogfights).  I envisioned accidentally running over one of the small dogs.  There's only so much I can do.  I am only one person, and no dogcatcher.  Apologies to the young woman in the green car: I'm no pro.  Sorry you got a fright.

Anyway, that was the most craptastic run in a while.

WHO LET THE DOGS OUT????!  Yeah, that's low-hanging fruit...but my head hurts and I just can't cough up the goods today.  No wonder I've been preferring the treadmill lately!