The Coolest Spot

Husband and I always feel like we do the best we can with giving Barry enough exercise. He gets 4 good walks each day. One of those walks is typically much longer. We play with him inside. We take stairs occasionally if walks are short. I would just love to have a yard for him. It's just not physically possible to give him all the exercise he requires without a yard. When he gets outside he is a different dog. He's moving, listening, hyper-aware, sniffing, intense, and on-alert. He's not focused on us most of the time. I know he knows we're there now, though. The first couple of months I wondered if he realized he was out on a walk with us and that we had a leash on him. Since he's walking soooo much better nowadays I at least know that he knows we're there. He's still mostly all about his surroundings but coupled with not pulling so much.

This last weekend we were out on our final Before Bed walk of the day. It was probably 11:45 PM. We walked a pretty typical route but switched it up a bit by continuing through a park and the front of a school. It was nice out, too and that's why we wanted to switch it up a bit. We walked by a grassy gated area. It was all gated off. You could easily get in, just closing the gate behind you. The gate is a 4 1/2 foot black iron gate. Husband suggested we let Barry run around a bit. So we all walked in (the gate door open) and latched close the gate. I walked around to the other side and closed the back gate, Husband unhooked Barry's leash and he was off. This spot has a really long stretch that is perfect for running, and run Barry did. Back and forth, up and down, in the bushes and all over the place. He was loving it. We felt really good about this find. Though, we've seen it before. We've walked by this spot and we've even seen people in there with their dogs. We just hadn't walked by at night when no one else was there. The opportunity didn't present itself in the same way it did last weekend. Nighttime is the best time for letting Barry run around in that spot with no other dogs or people around.

I'm calling it the 'spot' because I don't know what else to call it. It's not a dog park. It juts up to the exterior of a school. The school is in an L shape and there is the gated area at the back of the school that is grassy with a bit of a slope, some side walk, and bushes. It's not a playground for children. It's perfect for allowing your dog to romp around for 15 or 30 minutes to blow of some steam, though. I'm glad we found it. Obviously we'd never have Barry run around during school hours. He's a total nut in there. Running so fast and so furious. I know he enjoyed being a dog in there. I'm not completely sure that we are allowed to bring Barry in there but for now we'll just do it in the evenings and clean up after ourselves (read: pick up Barry's poo) before leaving.

To us, this spot is a gem. It's kind of a game changer. It's awesome. Barry did step on something, though, while running around. It punctured his front left pad and ripped some of the callous off. That precious callous that you work so hard to build up so that your dog can walk around outside easily. It's just a chunk but he was limping and that's why we caught it. We've been cleaning it each night and covering it with a bootie on walks. Once he's more healed up we'll take him to this magical spot as often as possible. I'm hoping we can take him tonight. He deserves to run free and be a dog every single night.