Summer Days

It has been too hot to walk the dogs during the day over the past week. They aren’t at all acclimatised to the heat, especially since last weekend I had a coat on Dylan between racing so he didn’t get cold (and we all wore hats and gloves to ring party, to prevent freezing).

Rio is suffering the most, but that’s mainly because she’s still running around at 100mph and she can’t swim to cool off like the others. The girls and Dylan are taking things at a slower pace, wisely, and chilling out in the river a lot on walks.

I didn’t forget about Dylan’s birthday last month, but I didn’t blog about it. He was six on April 21st, which seems quite bizarre to me. I don’t remember when he grew up? Looking at his photos from earlier today I can see this amazing, mature, gorgeous dog and I think he’s pretty damn awesome. It’s strange, because he’s not the dog I thought he would be; it took me a long time to reconcile my expectations and ideas of what he should be, to seeing and accepting the dog he actually is. For all his neurotic, insecure, and fear-based quirks, he’s the kind of dog that was always in the books I read when I was younger. He is a Good Dog, it’s written right into his blood.

He also played with Diva this week, which is a fairly massive milestone in his life considering he’s seen her every week for the past 2 years and has spent most of that time trying to pretend she doesn’t exist.