No More Lake Fun for My Dogs

For the past two and a half years, we’ve taken our dogs to the lake on post pretty frequently. I go in the middle of the day on weekdays and there’s never anyone else around. In the very rare event that I see someone else in our spot, we go somewhere else.

The dogs love it because they can swim and run crazy. I love it because it’s a good place to work on off leash recall since it’s a clearing with nowhere for them to run off to and it’s far from the road.

Yesterday — for the first time in 2.5 years — one of the official lake people pulled up in his truck into our area. Shecky instantly ran to my side and sat, Bones ran up to the side of the truck and barked twice. I walked over as I called her to come, she ran back to me, and I picked up her leash.

The guy looked at me and said, “Has anyone told you your dogs have to be leashed out here?”

I said, “Oh no, I didn’t know that actually. We just bring them out here to run.”

He said, “Well, unless you have them under voice control.” Then he looked at Bones and said, “Can you sit? Sit.”

Bones just looked at him, so I gave her the hand signal and said, “Sit.” She sat.

Then the guy looked at Shecky and told her to sit. She didn’t sit. She looked at me and backed up instead. I gave her the hand signal and she sat.

Then the guy said, “Well, I guess your cover’s blown.”

What? Because she responded to a hand signal from her owner instead of a voice command from a stranger?

But we’d already been there for a while anyway and I didn’t feel like arguing with a moron, so I said, “Ok puppies, time to go home.”

I was still holding Bones’ leash, but she turned and started walking toward the car. Shecky – still unleashed – immediately went and sat by the passenger side of the car, waiting for me to open it so she could get in.

Yeah, too bad I don’t have my dogs under voice control. Idiot.

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