Chuck-It Induced Insanity

Today you are going to get a guided tour of our new dog park. We really lucked out - there's just one in the whole area and we are only 3 quick miles away, both of us right at freeway exits. In fact, the park is an old highway rest stop at the state line. I thought Colorado was making some awesome dog parks, but this one is nothing to be ashamed of.

It has the required double gate entry but also has running water at a few places around the park. All the parks in CO were dry and folks brought bottles of water with them to fill the bowls.

Nice big trees and covered picnic tables ...

A lightly wooded area with meandering walking paths in the back corner ...

And a big huge open grassy area with 2 pipe tunnels. Count 'em - two. (The other one is off-screen. Ha!)

Does it seem odd that there are no dogs in the pictures? There are rarely a lot of dogs at the park, especially not down in the field. They all seem to congregate around the people, who congregate around the tables. But they say it is a heavily used park, and portions will be closed off for revegetation or whatever that word is supposed to be.

It's just lucky that we can go mid-day and mid-week when not many others are there. Star and I can practice agility stuff in the tunnels and on the table, while Sunny chases the ball. But I like it when a few other dogs are there sometimes too, so Star can have a good romp. She likes to get the whole pack chasing her and she runs so fast that all the spectators just ooh and aah at her speed.

Now that I've figured out how to get the Chuck-It in and out without beating Sunny over the head with it, I might get brave and try taking the camera in with the dogs to get some pictures of that chase. Have I talked about CII before? It's a horrible disease that Sunny has. CII stands for Chuck-It Induced Insanity. If I have the Chuck-It in my hand, we can barely make it across the parking lot and through the gates without me wanting to strangle him. If I hold it up over my shoulder, he practically climbs up my back to get to it. We can't walk in a straight line. And it's down right embarrassing to have so little control over my dogs with everyone watching our approach.

So now the C-I comes out of the car first and gets threaded through the fence. Then the dogs get walked calmly to the gate. And life is good.