Great Expectations

The Newton dogs lead a pretty good life. Walks in the morning AND the afternoon, hikes in the mountains and beach every weekend, premium dog food and they get to cruise around in the truck with David for the better part of the day. In the summer or when days are hot, they come home in the afternoon and lounge about in the house with the room air-conditioners that David bought this year. While we certainly benefit from them, it cracks me up that we went without A/C in this house for 15 years, but got it this summer for the dogs.

During daylight savings time, I walk the dogs in the evening when I am home, which is more and more often of late given my current status of 'unemployed/temporarily retired'. The plan is that at 6pm I load them up and we go out on one of 5 or 6 different courses that we (let's be honest, I get lost in my neighborhood - DAVID did all the work!) have mapped out, anywhere from 3 to 5 miles in length. Mondays are the 'Frog Walk', aptly named for the frog serenade that you can hear in the wash as the sun sets and well into dusk.

These walks are programmed into these dogs - I think that Scooby knows the days of the week, can tell time and knows exactly which location she is going to. It is without fail that at about 5:50 she comes over to me and just gives me a look - she doesn't want or need anything, doesn't bark or make any noise, I think that she is giving me the 10-minute warning. If I do not wrap things up and hustle them out the door by 6, then she starts to pace and sigh with exasperation...it can really put a lot of pressure on a person if they are trying to finish up a task!

Once we get loaded in the car, each dog has their own little routine; Daphne jumps into the passenger seat and pesters to be petted, Shadow sits in the back with her head on the console, looking up at me and Scooby couldn't care less about anything until we are within about a mile of our starting point and then she becomes very animated and attentive. The picture above is my attempt to capture the very excited pack as we roll up and I let everyone out to do up the leashes; unfortunately the photographer in this situation (ahem, that would be me) did a poor job of having the Blackberry ready and Scooby (who is no fan of the camera) jumped down to try and hide. Just pretend that all 3 have eager faces, ready to set out on their Monday adventure. I'll keep trying to capture the moment, but trust me when I tell you that these dogs have great expectations for their evening walk.