ChiKat

Took the dog to the lake yesterday. Within minutes, he was blissfully happy and dripping in algae. That lake is so gross. I had heard that the beaches were going to start flying red/yellow/green flags to indicated water quality, but I have yet to see a flag. It’s a great idea. I’d love to have a better idea about the water quality on any given day.

The dog drank a ton of the water and he’s not vomiting today, so I’m assuming the water quality was pretty decent yesterday.

People love to watch the dog swim in the lake. We throw sticks to him and he fetches them. By the third or fourth throw, we usually have a small audience cheering him on. Yesterday, on one of the dog’s last runs, he swam past the stick without realizing it. And kept swimming. And swimming. I have to admit, my heart stopped for a little bit. The dog is not smart. He probably would have swum until he sunk. It was a little frightening. We started to yell his name, but he was pretty far out in the water and must not have heard us. Luckily, one of our audience members had a really deep voice, and he yelled out to the dog. That caught his attention, and the dog turned to look back at us. He saw us jumping up and down and clapping, so he turned around and started to swim back. Then he saw the stick that he had passed, and I could actually see his ears perk up as he got excited at the successful fetch. His audience cheered for him when he made it to shore and he rewarded them by shaking off all the algae water onto them. What a charmer.

When we’re down at the lake, we see more and more dads out with their kids, with no mom in sight. It’s really nice. It seems like it is more and more acceptable for a father to spend time alone with his children.