Dogs and Water

Yesterday, Pam and Rachael came over with doggy Alex. The Zanders are going to Tanzania for 2 weeks and have asked us to get Alex from the kennel a few times and take him to Shawnee Mission Park's dog area to play, so Pam was going to show us the ropes. We piled everyone and Alex in the car and headed west. The dog park is an open, off-leash area which is attached to the larger Shawnee Mission Park area. Part of the lakeshore is open with a rock beach that is perfect for letting the dogs swim. We parked and let puppy Alex go. The boys loved it...we were at the crest of hilltop with a large, mulch-lined road leading across the top of it and down, with big swaths of waving Kansas prairie grass on each side (how's that for idyllic language? I didn't describe other undesirable elements lying ON the path. But to be fair, there wasn't as much of that as you would expect--they did have bags and a doggy poop disposal area. Anyway, back to our story...) There were, of course, other dogs there. The guys especially loved these two little mini dachshunds who had arrived at about the same time as us. One was just the right color for a roasted hot dog. She was very friendly and trotted along with us for a while. It made me think fondly of Pepper (my childhood weenie dog) and I got a hankering for one of those little dogs. There were also several excited Labs and some other more unusual dogs that I couldn't identify--several that looked like they had some boxer in them, but in other respects were not remotely like a boxer. We went down the road to the lakeshore, where most of the dogs had gathered. Pam had brought a tennis ball and we threw the ball in the water for Alex to fetch. The guys had a great time pitching the ball out in the lake and rewarding Alex with a treat when he brought it back. Alex slowly lost interest and we had to remind him to get the ball by throwing small rocks out towards where the ball was floating. I had to curb their rock-throwing enthusiam by reminding them not to throw the rocks out near the other dogs--that would hurt! We wandered slowly back. It was really muggy, but in only in the high 80's and the wind was blowing, so it wasn't too unpleasant. The waving prairie grass was a pleasure to watch, and the boys had fun running through it. We'll let you know how futher visits to the dog park go.