So, off first thing Saturday morning, before breakfast or anything to get her tested. And, when we emerged an hour later, it was so beautiful (the overnight freezing temperatures have passed), that going out to the dog park seemed a great idea. Since California Pastrami was again closed — for the third time in a row we've tried — we just grabbed bagels and headed out.
It's 22 acres, fenced, and usually folks head out with their dogs and walk the perimeter, meeting and collecting a pack on the way. Cheyenne's gotten better about leaving the lizards alone and actually walking the path with us. When we met up with a Beagle pair and a black-and-white Akita named Lotus, she was pretty happy to go along with the group and actually play, dashing off and running around occasionally.
And then back to the shelter by the entrance for water and shade; we were ready to head home, but a new group arrived, and Cheyenne wanted to follow. Included a beautiful Ridgeback puppy, a couple hounds, and an Akita(?) mix named Jack that she was, again — and to our surprise and delight — happy to play with. But they got to running, both cornered hard, and everybody went flying and skidding; Jack, all muscle and fur, bounced back up, ready to run some more. Cheyenne, a bit more shaken and with thin skin and no fat, was all scraped up from sliding across the rough ground, and with a quarter-size chunk out of her back.
Our parking space at the vet's was still open.
Stitched up and at home, glaring at at us for trying to keep her from licking it, she then had to suffer through the vacuum and the afternoon of chores preparing for Andy's arrival.
But today — the great big annual Greyhound reunion — GCNM brought together New Mexico's Greys and their humans. Should we go? Would she be up to it? Would they see the stitches and repossess her? Given the opportunity and the beautiful day, we hurriedly got our stuff together and drove off.
We signed is as #229 and, though I suspect they started at 100, that still meant quite a turnout. All kinds of thin, tall, pretty dogs ignoring each other (not entirely true, but certainly much more sedate than your average canine gathering).
(click for much larger, find Mon and Cheyenne — pretty much next to, as it turns out, her fosters, who we were trying to find all afternoon)
Passed the afternoon meeting other dogs (nobody even bothered to introduce themselves, just mentioning their dogs' names). A few hours, then back home (via Sonic, of course).
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Watching the Ken Burns national parks documentary now (I've never actually watched a Burns documentary, y'know). Pretty amazing, isn't it? Time was, before we moved to the West, vacations were often planned around being able to make it to a national park in a day's travel, and preferably staying somewhere on the park. Our travels have taken us to (including monuments), let's see, off the top of my head: Shenandoah, Big Bend, Badlands, Wind Cave, Devil's Tower, Guadalupe, Carlsbad, White Sands, Bandelier, El Malpais, Petroglyph, Tent Rocks, Olympic, and Hot Springs (my regret about the drive out here was bypassing Smoky Mountains).
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Also: those spindly plants in the front yard are asters. Overnight temperatures have taken their toll, but we've got an amazing wildflower meadow out front now.
