Its not easy being Sadie

I wanted to mix up my walking routine a little bit so I planned a new route. We’ve been walking the same base route around the block since we found Sadie and Max over two years ago. When I wanted to walk for fitness we expanded the route to make it 1 mile, then 1.5 mile. We have a 2 mile route that we walk occasionally but every walk has the familiar. The same houses, the same trees, the same dogs barking from us from their window or back yard.

My body needed a change so I found a route that wasn’t flat as a pancake, I found a route with a small grade, I can’t really call it a hill, it was a grade incline but it was enough.

Our new route involved leaving our house and turning right, we always turn left, walking down the block and around the corner…around the corner into new territory. My glutes and hammy’s LOVED the new route, Sadie did not.

When we came back to the corner I said to Ken, I think she missed getting her pine cone tonight. Since we had already walked 2 miles on a new route with inclines and grades to make my legs work harder we might as well walk down the block and around the corner and down to the pine cone tree. I didn’t calculate it until this morning but my 2 mile walk turned into a 2.5 mile walk. That half mile walk to get the pine cone was worth it to see Sadie back to her bouncy self!

I never thought that taking a new route would evoke such strong emotion from Sadie. Max trotted along sniffing the new things and checking out the new people. Sadie hated it! Where was her favorite place to roll? Where was the man down the block who (in Sadie’s mind) looks forward to her slobbery kisses? Where was the most favorite tree with pine cones? Sadie is a creature of habit. Every day when we walk past this tree she takes a pine cone and carries it for a while and will drop it in a random yard. Or she’ll give it to me or Ken and expect us to throw it or kick it so she can chase after it.

We ran into the man who told us the story of the pine cones again and how proud he was that he solved the big mystery on the block. For the past year puzzled people down the block have been wondering, they’ve been speculating, they asked…how did a pine cone from that tree WAY DOWN THERE end up in my yard….the answer? Sadie!

Sadie is a creature of habit, she is the alpha dog, she likes the familiar and she likes the safe and she thinks the world revolves around her, Queen Sadie Great Empress of the Universe. Max enjoyed exploring the new areas and sniffing new scents.

I think Max has the right idea. You need to mix things up once in a while to keep them interesting. Today after walking the new route with the hills, my legs are feeling like they had a workout yesterday! Mixing things up every once in a while is good for my body…now if we can only find a way to keep Queen Sadie Great Empress of the Universe happy with the new routes…