Dog Days of Winter

I've been spending my days looking for work online, sending out resumes, doing my taxes (refund expected within 2 weeks - hooray!) and going for walks and excursions with my sister's dog, Abbey.

Having never been a dog owner, I am taking to it quite well. My favorite outings have been to the dog park located in Seattle's Magnison Park. It is very expansive, filled with muddy and grassy play areas, a path that leads down to the water, a rocky beach with logs and benches on which to climb and sit, fenced-in trails, water-filled metal bowls along the path, and plenty of strategically placed plastic bags and garbage cans for doggie-doo.

Twice this week Abbey and I have ventured to the leash-free dog park where she's danced with Dobermans and pranced with Pomeranians. Butt-sniffing Boxers and precocious Poodles of all sizes have trotted beside her as we've made our way down to the water to watch scads of young Golden Retrievers swim and play fetch. She gets mighty tuckered out after these outings, a good thing. Dogs, I've learned, have a way of guilting a person into action. If the weather is just too nasty or I'm just too lazy to take her for a walk, I know I'll be in for an evening filled with a prostrate dog, sighing and harrumphing, as her sideways face stares sadly into my eyes.

Today we took a frigid, rainy walk to Alki Beach, where she got so excited by some former canine visitor's calling card that she rolled around on her back on the grass and howled! It looked just like my kitties when given a fresh layer of catnip on their scratching posts! I'd never seen a dog do anything like it. Then I was told she was probably rolling around in dog poo. There is a big difference between dogs and cats, that is for sure.