Nurse Maggie

My dog has done a good job of taking care of me the past few days. So today when I scuttled off to the PetsMart (I thought we had enough food to get through the week, but, sadly, not so much) I picked her up a couple of little presents.

My aunt and I went to this book signing last week for Best Hikes With Dogs: NC. The author was at this cute little independant bookstore that's in the same strip mall as my secondary LYS, giving a talk with some reporter from the local paper who also wrote a book about hiking in NC. She was very sweet and has a very cute black lab named Shelby who apparently hiked all the trails in the book with her as research. Consequently, there are a lot of trails with lab-friendly things like water and ducks.

But regardless, Maggie's always been up for a good hike through the woods, whether we were on the paved forest preserve trails in Chicago or slogging through the mud in the woods behind our house in NH (once, we went for a "walk" and ended up exploring the woods and got so muddy that as we came into the house, I took my shoes off, threw them in the garbage can outside, rolled up the bottoms of my scrubs, and hefted Maggie onto my shoulder before we went in. I then walked straight upstairs and dumped her into the tub before she could get muddy paw prints on anything but the bathroom tile. I spent a lot of time working the caked mud out of her paw pads that day. She was NOT pleased). She's a little afraid of the beach, but, you know, whatever, she'll get used to it. Anyway, in said book she talks a lot about the proper gear for taking your dog hiking. She recommended two things for the dog in particular - a pack, and boots. Not for all the time (the boots), but if you get into rocky areas, or need something to hold a bandage on a hurt paw, or the weather turns suddenly, they're good to pull out.

Now, of course, you can't just whip these out on the trail and expect your pooch to be like, oh, okay then. So I was like, I really should get her a set soon and then acclimate her to them. Ditto with the pack, but that can wait a while. Anyway, wouldn't you know it, dog boots were 70% off at the Petsmart today. Can't go wrong with that, right? Even if she refuses to walk in them, it's less than a $5 loss.

Let me also say I've tried to put boots on Maggie several times in her life. She has not, um, historically done well with them. She did a little better today.

Of course, she readily struck a pose for the camera....

But this more accurately sums up how she really felt about them...

There was still a lot of goose-stepping and sad-puppy eyes, but at least she walked around in them for a while.

She also got a new toy that seemed particularly appropriate for the season....

Because you know that my dog is a democrat....

Now all we need is for me to stop being contagious, and we'l be trail ready.

I'm feeling a little better today, I guess. Really achy. Still really tired. Not crusty yet. My aunt brought over cookies and spaghetti pie, so that will definitely make me feel better.