Maddie and Exercise

When I first got Maddie, I was a (very slow) jogger. It would have been great if she would have joined me on my jogs, but she was too interested in sniffing everything along the way. For a time I tried making her retrieve a tennis ball for exercise. But after all, she's mostly beagle. She would bring the ball back only if she knew she'd get a treat.



Before I started working at the vet school, I participated in the annual fall Omega Tau Sigma "Road Race for Animals." We always signed up as walkers. At one of the first ones, when the walkers were signaled to start, I had positioned us near the rear intending to amble through the course. But Maddie looked around and saw everyone headed in one direction, and she decided she wanted to lope up ahead. I was wearing running shoes, and so we trotted along, passing up most of the walkers.

Then we got near the top of the "hill" on St. Mary's Road. Maddie just decided she'd had enough. She threw herself down in the grass and no amount of coaxing could get her to move for about 5 or 6 minutes. Meanwhile, all those walkers we'd passed were now passing us. Making comments, too.

Just as suddenly as she'd quit, she was up again, and loping along. I couldn't hold her back. So we passed those same walkers once again. Shortly thereafter, she took another "break" of lying motionless in the grass.

It was an embarrassing outing, to say the least.