NEAR MISS

Tonight, after putting Blake in bed, Aleena and I went on a bike ride/run. I'm determined to lose fat on me and put some muscle on my girl. So we rode hard for about 40 minutes and then went over to one our MANY riverfront parks to walk for a little bit.

Side note: you all know how Veyda loves to run directly away when off-leash and come back IF she feels like it...which is never. ALEENA is a new experience for me. I can have her off-leash and she'll STILL heel! I'll let her run off and she will ALWAYS come back as soon as I call her. I can't tell you how amazing I think she is, after my little Veyda monster (who is getting slightly better). Mind you, at home, Veyda is the best behaved dog ever and my little Li-li can be a rag-doll beasty. She's all puppy limbs, so she tends to flop everywhere as she's bouncing around the house.

So anyway, Li-li and I are at the park, in the dark. I had the headlight from my bike in my hand. I saw these little eyes attached to something black...no, two somethings black...running across our path. Short to the ground and moving fast...they looked like weasels. Well, I was distracted trying to figure out what they were...put my light on them, and Aleena spotted them. She chased the one in front down to the river with the other not far behind her, at the same time I saw a tail go up and there was the white stripe in the flashlight beam! I was YELLING for her to come back, heard a short hissing sound and she came running. She got about 200 ft behind me and THEN barked at them. It took some coaxing to get her to come back to me...she just wanted to keep going. How lucky am I? NO SKUNK SPRAY ON MY DOG!!! Apparently she got a warning hiss and took the hint. Boy, was I grateful to not have to be in the car with that smell! You can bet we had a long chat on the way home about not chasing skunkies ever again.