Run, Run, Rudolph!

We ran our 2nd annual Reindeer Run in Lakewood, OH last weekend.  Bob, his sister, me, and some other friends ran in below freezing temperatures, along the lake at Lakewood park.  We have made it a tradition to wear some type of holiday attire.  Last year and this year we wore cute antlers!  I thought that would be silly for a dog to wear, so I got Cabbie a more functional sweater to keep her warm, and also a fluffy jingle bell collar. Much more fitting, don't you think?

Here is a picture of the sweater, because it was hard to get a good shot of it while she was wearing it.

Here she is on our way to the race.  I know many of you won't believe me (that's assuming enough people read this to constitute "many") but she does not hate this outfit.  She always looks like this in the car. If she sits up and looks out the window, she gets car sick (which did happen on this day, about 3 minutes before we parked the car-Poor thing had to run on an empty stomach!) (thank heaven for our Kurgo car seat cover. I really like it-it's waterproof, cleans up easily, and has saved my car seat more than a few times from Cabbie. It's actually called the Wander Hammock, but it can be used by putting the front part down along the seat and since Cabbie doesn't try to jump in front with us, we just keep it down)   Anyways, here she is in the car:

She was much better once we got out of the car, see:

Much happier, don't you think... I'd say even a little proud of herself.  

This year, though, the cold was somewhat bearable because it was nice and sunny:

This was after the race-All smiles.

Before the race, however, was a different story.  Cabbie is such a great dog. We love her to death and really feel that we hit the jackpot as far as finding a good dog to rescue and join our family.  She is sweet, gentle, listens as well as you would expect an 8 month old puppy that you've had in your home for about a month.  And let's be honest-she's beautiful.  I know this because people tell us this and swoon over her everywhere we go. :)

She changes a little, though, when other dogs are around. She barks and gets very antsy when she initially sees other dogs.  She eventually settles down, but it takes a bit. The dog trainer suggested that her anxiety/excitability with other dogs probably is due to her being out on the street as a stray. He explained that she probably only had negative interaction with other dogs, as they probably attacked her or tried to fight her for food or places to sleep.  That is very logical to me, but I never would have thought of that! He says we will just need to help her gain confidence by providing her with positive interactions with other nice dogs.  Anyone reading this who would like a doggy play date- let us know :) 

So, anyways, at these races that we do, there are always a lot of runners who bring their dogs. We were very excited to begin this with Cabbie. I've always wanted to be a runner (jogger) with a dog :) I had her all ready- sweater, fluffy jingle bell collar, training collar, leather lead, and blue doggie bags (incase we needed to make a pit stop).  Everyone we passed oohed and ahhed over how cute she looked. 

We started the race and Cabbie was so overwhelmed.  She wanted to run with everyone there, kept weaving all over the place and cutting people off, and started barking like crazy. I'm sure people were mumbling under their breath and cursing that "stupid lady for letting her dog run amuck and get in everyone's way." Thankfully, I had my earphones in and my music was playing so I just smiled and mouthed "Sorry" to all of those from whom I received glances (dirty looks-what happened to the oohs and ahhs?!). Also, it was probably a good thing we went with the sweater, I think some people couldn't help but smile at Cabbie in her cute, festive outfit.  

I tried to let most of the crowd clear out and we sort of trotted along as I tried my best to keep Cabbie next to me and away from other runners.  She did not settle down until about a mile in.  At one point, Bob thought it would be a good idea to get an action shot of us.... you can tell how happy I was with our crazy puppy and her antics. Here she is coming back into the street and weaving in front of me:

Like I said, she eventually settled down and we had a nice run together for the last two miles.  Here we are doing much better as we head to the finish line:

So, I would categorize our first race together as a quasi success!  We made it and had quite a bit of fun, and have an amusing little story to tell :)