Those of us who are old enough remember the good old classic song, Louie Louie. (Or our parents listened to it and we played on the old vinyl albums.). In addition to the oldies stations, Louie Louie is also a classic pep band song that really revs up the crowd. It would probably make a good song on a running playlist, too. I had an adventure on my run this morning that made me think of the song. The plan for today was to do a longish run of 8-10 miles. The weather started out foggy with a dew point in the mid 60's and temps in the upper 60's. I was supposed to do about half of the run and meet up with Deb for the second half. About two miles into my run, I heard some jingling behind me and looked back to find a friendly-looking yellow lab running along. I yelled a couple times for him to go home and continued on. He apparently was enjoying the running and kept on going. I wasn't sure where he had come from and was hoping we were approaching either his house or the end of where he was comfortable being out on his own and head back. I'd also figured that if a police car came by, I could flag them down for assistance as we almost always see one or more police cars every morning. A mile and a half later, I still had a four-legged partner. At that point, it didn't seem likely he'd find his own way home so I tried to see if he'd let me look at his collar at which time I found out his name was Louie--like the song. There were phone numbers on the back of his tag and I called one of them. Even though it was 5:30am, I got an answer on the first ring. When I asked the man if he had a dog named Louie, he answered, "Yes and we are looking for him!" I told him the direction I was headed and he said he'd meet us. I'm not sure why I was so confident Louie would continue to follow me, but he did. In the meantime, I called Deb to meet me in a different spot so I could drop off Louie first. When his owner found us, he looked really happy to see him and Louie jumped right into the SUV. Apparently Louie had loosened one of the boards on the fence in his backyard and that's how he happened to be out loose this morning. I wonder if Louie just wanted to do a long run today??? Once Louie was safely headed for home and a drink of water, Deb and I continued on our run which was getting progressively warmer and more humid although we agreed that we've had worse. We managed nearly five miles (8.55 total for me) which was pretty solid in sticky weather. In an effort to drink more water, I put bottles out for us on the front steps to drink right away after finishing. We grabbed our waters and Charlie, safely on his leash, and got a nice cool down walk. While getting a dog returned to his owner might seem like the obvious choice, there is a big problem trying to figure out the owner...in order to read a dog's tag, one must get close to him. You also have to put your head awfully close to the big teeth of a dog you don't know. After running together a couple miles, I was not afraid of Louie and he complied by standing still while I checked his tag. Before we had Charlie, I would have not been brave enough to do that. I also would not have realized how much pets are considered part of the family. Even though we have a dog, I have not forgotten how afraid people can be, especially if they don't know the dog. Charlie runs with me on shorter easy runs a couple of times per week. When we are meeting other pedestrians, I try to shorten up Charlie's leash because while I'm pretty confident he would just try to lick their knees or solicit some petting, other runners have no idea how naughty or nice he is.
With any luck, none of our readers will encounter any loose dogs on the run. It can be very scary if the loose dog is not a great partner like Louie. Stay cool; it looks the current heat wave will last only another day or tow. Happy running--Missee Do you have any tales of dog encounters? Share in the comments!
3 Comments
Stephanie
6/30/2019 10:59:40 am
I love that story!💕🐶
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Sandie
7/2/2019 07:16:33 am
You are much braver than you two were as little ones when you could spot a dog two blocks away
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Patrick
7/4/2019 07:40:15 am
I’m so glad you were able to help!
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AuthorMissee and Stephanie are two Minnesota sisters and moms who love to run. We are not experts in running, parenting or anything else, but we do have years of experiences that may be helpful or entertaining to others. Archives
May 2020
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