Polar Dip

Thirty-four degrees Fahrenheit, the perfect temperature for a swim! At least, that's what Sadie, the wonder-pup, thinks. Yesterday, Jordan and I took her hiking for a couple hours at Green Lane Reservoir. You would have thought that she was in heaven running along those trails. Jordan's brother takes her there several times a week. She knows the trails and we can let her run ahead without too much worry. Anyway, she really likes being with her people, so it's unlikely that she would ever run away.

At the beginning of the trail, there are woods on both sides. Sadie went in search of a stick that we could throw and she could chase. She has the silly habit of finding sticks that are at least three feet in diameter and five times her length, so we have chisel a stick of suitable length out of the ones she brings. She's probably just trying to demonstrate her incredible strength.

While we use a hacksaw to hew a stick out of the huge limbs she brings us, Sadie sits on the trail and waits for us to stop being so slow. She gazes up at us sympathetically. Probably thinking about how slow humans are at everything.

After the first mile or so, the trail continues along the bank of the reservoir. Sadie LOVES water. Every time she ran ahead of us on this portion of the trail she would come back with her legs wet just a little higher up each time. Finally, Jordan made her "stay by" because she was soaked all the way up to her chest. Fortunately, the weather wasn't freezing or it would have been necessary to hustle Sadie out of there and I'm not very good at hustling on rocky trails.

As it was, we just got her away from the water and let her sprint up and down the sides of the ravine. In the time it took us to walk up one side (panting the whole way and taking a rest at the top) Sadie had already run down and up and around and played a game of fetch with a bear and run down and up again about thirty times. By then, she was dry just from the 3000 BTUs she was throwing off and we were practically dead from the thirty foot climb.

Since we had already been hiking for about an hour and a half, we decided to turn back and follow the trail home. We were tired and thirsty and ready to eat some lunch. Sadie was still running ahead, bringing us gigantic sticks to throw and chasing every shadow that moved in the woods. She had more energy than when we'd arrived.

Our assumption that Sadie would suddenly recognize her exhaustion and fall asleep immediately upon our return to the house was foolish, to say the least. Just moments after we flopped on the couch with tall glasses of water, Sadie jounced up to us holding her ring toy in her mouth with a look that said, "Time to play now?"