Freya Sees the River

Before Christmas, and hence before the third UK lockdown, we thought we'd best take Freya down to the river since she'd actually been alright to walk by water for a couple of weeks but we hadn't got around to showing her the river. (Worst sentence ever constructed in a blog – if you can make sense of that, you're doing very well.) We went this way, past the sports centre. That's the indoor pool that you can see through the trees – I'm saying indoor pool so that you can imagine what sort of you're looking at, but there's no chance there would ever be an outdoor pool in these parts.   

Freya was quite excitable when we got to the cycle track, and I am only guessing when I say that I think it was because she could smell the river – I would imagine that it gives off quite a powerful stink for animals with excellent noses. All that stinky mud. She's not looking excitable here, but that's because she's waiting for a treat. After this, she was straining at the lead, walking like an idiot. Why do dogs half-strangle themselves when it's in their power to just walk nicely and not nearly die? 

So, with my arm almost ripped out of its socket, we made it to the river within half a minute and that's when madam went properly nuts. So many smells, including real dead sheep – she found one very quickly, and she would quite happily have eaten it and rolled around in its fleece if I hadn't dragged her away. Dogs are weird. Funny, but very weird. Strangely, though, Freya is never interested in playing in the mud – she avoids puddles, and she seems to be able to tell that mud will make her feet wet, which she doesn't like. We've walked in the rain lots, and Matthew and I trudge straight through the puddles now because we've got new wellies. But Freya primly trots around the outside of them, even pulling away if I try to guide her through them. Weirdo.

She's not fussed about sticks either. There's a lot of driftwood down by the river at the moment, and she's not interested in any of it. Even when I picked a up few choice looking branches and offered them to her, she still wasn't arsed – she just looked at the sticks, then at me, as if she was saying, 'am I supposed to be impressed?' Fine. Whatever. 

We walked quite some way down the river, but I didn't take any more photos because I was concentrating on not slipping in the mud. It is trickier to stay on my feet when with Freya because she does pull quite a bit and I'm not doing very well at training her out of that. Perhaps our treats aren't tasty enough. I'll try some chorizo, I think. But anyway, she loved being by the river – but that's because she loves all of her walks. I don't think she has particular preference or care where she is, as long as she's outside.

This was about the last time we had a longer walk in the daylight. All of our recent ones that haven't been toilet walks have been in the dark. Winter nights have never bothered me before, but I'll be honest, I'm not a fan now – can't wait for the clocks to go forward again so I can see our little world once more! 

Until tomorrow, when I plan to write up a bunch more (dark) walks from the past couple of weeks.

WQ+M+F