Birds and Bug

This mornings run was great! We covered 7 miles in 68 minutes, (http://www.livestrong.com/loops/salt_lake_city_sadies_sweet_seven-3c1RzMxayw/)
and Sadie definately likes running in the morning much better than the evenings, which means she is no longer letting me sleep in! This morning she came in, seven on the dot when she heard the radio turn on and gave me her "collar please" look. It's so cute. She sits and looks straight up so I can get to her collar (We are working on training her to do this so she holds still while we hook it on--otherwise she starts to bounce around before we are ready to go).

The reason I think she likes the morning is all the birds that are out. Being a french brittany, she loves birds--she goes crazy any time she sees them out the window on the yard and bounces around until someone lets her out to chase them. The funny thing is she ignores cats, at least while we run. I don't know if she doesn't see them or doesn't care, but we have passed several cats outside, doing their thing and she doesn't even tug at them. But she sees a bird, even in the air, she has to at least try to get it.

It's cute, and makes the walks more fun since there are birds out EVERYWHERE in the morning. Luckily, she is fairly good once we get going but she still tries hard to lunge at any bird she thinks that she could catch.  It makes us pick up speed, sure, but I'm afraid she'll hurt herself as she tries to catch them--a few times she ends up on two legs, still trying her best to go at them full speed!

While the birds make the walks fun for her, she has become a very big scaredy cat while we are out there! She tries to hide between my legs anytime someone passes us, and if she hears a dog bark she HAS to get as far away from it as possible, be it on the other side of the fence or in someones house. It's hard to believe the reason we got her was because she keep fighting with my in-laws other dogs!

I find some of them even make me nervous though. I have had to alter courses several times because someone has their dog in the front yard, usually with them or tied up, but I never know how they/she are going to react to each other and since I don't want to take the chance, we go another direction. Usually it is no issue, but today I found myself worried--one long circle we usually go down had a big black lab in the front yard, and from what I could tell it wasn't tied up at all (at the least was on a long chain) with no owner in sight.  We crossed the street and headed back out of the circle, but I keep checking behind us to make sure the lab was not following. I never have really thought about what we would do if we run across a stray, or Sadie and another dog get into it. Any ideas?

Luckily the closest we've come to another dog being an issue was a month or so ago when we were still running in the evening (now it's to dark when I get home). We've passed other people with their dogs before, especially while on the Legacy Parkway Trail, so when I saw the guy and his dog coming towards us I didn't think anything of it. Suddenly, his dog bolts at us, Sadie lets out her "help!" cry and about trips me with the leash trying to get away. From what I could tell, the dog was friendly enough and just saying "hi" to Sadie, but it still was scary as he growled after she yelped.
The whole thing lasted seconds, but as we left I did get a little mad--I know people train their dogs to behave off leash, and I'm hoping to get Sadie to that point someday, but come on! First, in my opinon the dog wasn't trained well enough to be off leash, since 1) he took off after Sadie and 2) didn't come back when called, but more important rules are rules! There are signs all over the place that say "clean up after your dogs. They must be a leash at all times" yet this guy didn't have even have a leash with him! The city is nice enough to make sure every one of these signs have little black baggies hanging there so you can clean up after your pet, so the least we can do is follow the rules--other wise they won't let us keep taking dogs along the trail!

But of course, that's the nice thing about running. ten minutes later, the guy and his dog where a couple miles away and Bug and I were happily moving along, admiring the sun set as we finished up another great outing.