Greetings from the garage. Yesterday the CFHQ WOD was swim 1,000 meters (1,094 yards) for time. 1,000 meters equals approx. .6 miles, or around 20 laps in a 25 yard pool. Either way, I do not have immediate access to a pool, nor will I anytime soon, so instead of swimming on Sunday I ran 2.5 miles for the first time since the 5K last weekend. The route from my house is uphill on the way out, a gently sloping uphill for approx. .9 miles, so I tend to feel slow when first embarking. It’s not until getting about a mile under the feet that I begin to warm up and gain some cadence and comfort in my stride.

The dog loves to go for these runs, that’s an understatement. When I pull out the training collar he wags his tail and circles at my feet making it difficult for me to get my shoes on. There’s a cornucopia of chipmunks and squirrels and robins along our route. There’s also the old white farmhouse down the road, home to two white farm geese. Winter or summer, the geese are out there. Sometimes the farmer closes them up in the warmth and security of their shelter—a small wooden house-like shed painted green with white trim and a shingled roof—but mostly they wander freely around the property.

On Sunday afternoon the farm owner was outside putting up fencing around his rather impressive gardening plot. The dog and I stopped to say hello.

“Oh hey, Mary,” the farmer said. The geese honked loudly in the background as if to say, Intruder! Intruder!

“Beware of my attack geese,” the farmer said.

“Do they have names?” I asked.

“No, no names,” he said.

My dog tilted his head from side to side, listening and studying the creatures before him as German Shepherds do. He didn’t bark or tug on the leash to get to the geese and I felt relieved for his restraint against a normally pretty high prey-drive.

Then a bug flew into my mouth and I gagged and coughed and gasped for air and unsuccessfully tried to spit it out. “Oh my goodness, COUGH, COUGH… excuse me,” I said.

“Black flies, they’re out this time of year,” the farmer said.

“Well, enjoy the afternoon,” I sputtered and then turned to go. The dog dutifully stepped in-line at my side.

A few weeks before we had met two young black labs, Jupiter and Indigo, another half mile up the road and I get the sense that my dog was more interested in seeing them again. After some brief introductions the dogs were tumbling along the roadside and thrashing in and out of the creek in a playful roughhouse that dogs do and their humans love to watch. The newly acquainted neighbors seemed to get along just right.

My dog picked up an optimistic pace as we headed in Jupiter and Indigo’s direction once more, but sadly, the siblings were not out. So we turned and headed back the way we came; the dog noticeably slower then, lacking a certain bounce even if we were on the downhill home.