Between the Schnauzer and the English Cocker



What do you guys think I should do?

 There are times in the park when I feel as though there are really three dogs out there with me; my dog, a good dog, and a bad dog. Cadie is the neutral dog, and by neutral I mean easily swayed, the schnauzer is the bad dog, and by that I mean easily tempted to go it's own way; the English Cocker is the good dog, and by that I mean, most likely to obey commands. Before the Schnauzer people get all upset, I don't mean that schnauzers are bad dogs, but they have a strong independent streak, like all Terriers. The English Cocker on the other hand, seems to have no other purpose in life except to try to please it's owner. You know I love Terriers, but sometimes their independence is a bit of a liability. Let me explain.

In the past 2 weeks Cadie and I have been forced to eliminate 2 neighborhood parks from the list of parks we frequent, why? because without warning she'll take off after a squirrel; in the worst case, she nearly ended up underneath the tires of a big, white van. So I eliminated that park right off the bat, it's just too close to the road, and the squirrels are dare devils.

This last weekend Cadie showed greater restraint. The squirrels tempted her, but she stayed where she was, earning her a big mouthful of liver. I know that Cadie will follow her natural instincts, but again, this park is just too close to the street, so it's a no go.

The thing I find funny, in a scary way, is in that moment before Cadie's natural instincts take over she's completely conflicted. She does a couple of false starts, she hesitates, and even seems to turn her head from side to side, as if she's listening to two people talk. It reminds me of those old time cartoons where the devil sits on the left shoulder and the angel sits on the right, and they compete for the chance to guide the poor, lost soul's behaviour. Instead of angels and devils I see Cadie being torn between the natural instincts of two of her base breeds.



What did you say? I can go chase the squirrels?

 The Schnauzer, as we said, is independent, and likes to do things it's own way, so if a squirrel dares to run past it's path, the squirrel better be quick, because the schnauzer is unlikely to allow them to pass in peace. Also Schnauzers are very barky, Cadie is not a barky dog generally, but at the park, she has been known to be more vocal.

English Cockers on the other hand, are less independent, and tend to be more trainable, and follow commands more quickly. They were bred to work with people, and as a result they want to do their best to make their people happy. Cadie is very much a people pleaser.

So the scene at the park goes like this:

Me: Cadie come
Cadie shuffles her feet, looks from side to side, and back at me.
Cadie: ruff ruff
Me: shrugs. Cadie come.
Cadie shakes her head back and forth rapidly, the shaking moves back to the front legs, then shudders down her body, at one point every muscle is shaking back and forth. The shaking gradually stops, the front stops shaking first, until only the tail is still moving.
Me: Cadie. Right here! pointing at the spot on the ground between my feet
Cadie stares at me.
English Cocker: We have to go, that was a command. We have to go!
Schnauzer: you don't have to go, she already loves you, you don't have to do anything she says now.
EC: Yes we do, if we don't go, bad things might happen. Besides she has liver, I like liver.
Sch: yeah, liver's good, but not as good as catching one of those squirrels. Look at them, all smug, thinking they can get away from you. You should go and show them that you're the boss.
Cadie turns her head from side to side
EC: No. No. We should go, we were called.
Me: inching forward slowly so that I can put my foot on her leash. Cadie I said NOW!
Cadie dances a little and chooses either:

Option A: to come to me, get her liver, be a good girl, and stay longer in the park;

or

Option B: to ignore me and go after the squirrels.

Why are we leaving the park? What did I do?

I can't complain too much, she chooses Option A most often, but every now and then, she is lured by the persuasive Schnauzer, and takes off after those pesky squirrels. The outcome is a couple of very tense and frightening moments for me, and that, if I'm lucky enough to catch her alive, we leave the park as soon as I possible. She's always surprised by this turn of events. Oh Cadie, listening to that Schnauzer voice won't lead you to anything good.

A Milestone

Yes, this is my hundredth blog post. This blog, that started in February, just before the Olympics, is now 10 months old, and yes! has 100 posts. To celebrate, I took Cadie back to her two favourite dog parks Sherwood and Sunnybrook.

Friday was a great day for me, we knocked off work early, had a wonderful lunch at the Estates of Sunnybrook, and then I took advantage of the extra time by taking Cadie for a good long walk, and romp around Sherwood Park.

 It was the perfect day. Sunny and not too cold, and Cadie was able to play in the park for her usual hour in her favourite spots. But even with the early start, evening comes early in December, and the light is soon started to disappear, it was practically dusk by the time we left the trail at 4:30.

But, night also, must come to an end, and in the morning we headed up to the official off leash dog park at Sunnybrook. Again, the weather was beautiful, bright, sunny, and not too cold, despite the frost on the grass.

Normally I don't take Cadie's leash off in this park because she doesn't have the best recall there, but all the work we've been doing has paid off, and she came every time I called her, and soon her leash came off.

The morning wore on, and Cadie had had her fill of chasing balls, so we decided to spend some time exploring the foot trails that surround the park. This was a really nice treat. It was totally new scenery for me, and new smells for Cadie.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again, the weather was perfect, and Cadie confidently trotted along, super happy, seeing this walk through an urban park, as an adventure...that's right, an adventure on the end of a designer leash.

After a good play and a good walk, we headed back to the car, and then home, where we warmed up under a blanket, while drinking hot tea.

I hope you've enjoyed reading our 100th post, as much as we enjoyed living it!

Kew Gardens

I was very excited Friday afternoon, C and I were planning a trip to Riverside Park. A park that seems to get people pretty excited. But the best laid plans are no match for erratic weather. As I have some difficulty parking in the garage, I left my car out on the street, as I came into my apartment I heard a booming crack, and then a thud, as a huge branch hit the ground. That sealed the deal, C and I agreed that the combination of the black clouds overhead, and the powerful winds meant that Riverside Park was out of the question.

However, I owe you a park review, and it occurred to me that I never did post a review of our trip to Kew Gardens.

Kew Gardens is out in the east end. You'll see here that it has a gorgeous gazebo, they use this during the Beech Jazz festival too, the musicians are in the gazebo and they arrange chairs in front. You will see that Cadie escaped my grasp here, but this is technically not an off-leash zone.

This photo may be harder to see, but here you see a lawn bowling club, and beyond it the lake, what you may not see too well is the boardwalk, and sort of lost in the mix is the off leash area.

I don't know if you remember it, but the day Cadie ate a stick of butter she found a beach ball, and I hid it in the closet. I knew we were headed to the beach, and I wanted her to have something to play with when we got there. I'm glad that I kept it for her. This beach ball gave her minutes of fun...about 3. She chased it and lunged at it and grabbed at it, and then it deflated, so I threw it out, it was a no brainer.

The dog park is huge, at least as large as Sunnybrook, but, at least twice as spectacular. There is a lot of sandy space for dogs to run and catch balls, or wrestle with each other, but it's right on the lake, so more often than not we passed people sunbathing with their dogs. Cadie and I went with C, her brother D and of course Toby.


It was very windy that day too, so I was very worried that Cadie would want to go swimming, and I had forgotten her life jacket, so there was no way I was going to let her go in. Fortunately, as always, Cadie was far more interested in chasing after her ball then in going into the water.



It was a hot day, and truthfully both dogs were really struggling with this trip. It seems counter intuitive, but I don't think this park is really suitable for a hot day. The off leash area is completely sandy, while the grassy area is shady and cool, it is reserved for on leash dogs and people. Sand doesn't hold cooler temperatures as well as grass, and there were very few trees, and no water fountain that I could see, so it was even hotter there than our regular walk. We did stop on our way back to the car to enjoy the cool shade, we were all very pleased to sit for a minute on a park bench.

That being said, it was great to get out and play in a new park. I think we would definitely go back The cherry on the cake was the fabulous view!

Monday's Lamentations

So I’m at home on this beautiful night, which also happens to be the Jays home opener. So what you may say, well, I had bought tickets for this event back in February. So all of my friends are family are at the game, I am watching from home, and my seat is being used for coats. Why would a person miss something that they had obviously been eagerly anticipating since winter? I am sick. I don’t know what I have, I hope it’s nothing more serious than a cold, but I’m a mess. I woke up this morning at 5, sneezed 15 times, and headed back to bed until 6. I got up again at 6, sneezed another 25 times and decided that it would be irresponsible to spread this to all the unsuspecting commuters on the subway and headed back to bed until 8:30.


I had high hopes when I went to bed last night. Saturday had been a bad day, but I couldn’t go to bed early because I was involved in an intrigue involving C’s husband. It’s nothing salacious, C’s husband and I were planning a surprise party for her, and I had to play my role. So I got C out of the house, but I screwed up royally, although C had no idea that we were doing anything at all, I was almost an hour late getting her to her party. That meant that most people had a little less than an hour before they had to leave, which was terribly unfortunate. On the plus side, for me anyhow, I left C’s place at 8, and was in bed by 9:30.

Sunday was terrible, a good friend of mine was in town, and I had made plans to meet her and her husband for brunch. But I cancelled at 8:00 am, and spent the day in bed.

Cadie has been such a good little sickie friend. She hasn’t been too demanding, and she has been good company. That being said, one of the challenges of being single is that you are the only resource you have. That means that even if you are not feeling well you still have to get up and walk the dog. Sunday I took Cadie on a bit of an adventure. Our path is fairly clear, but has some tree coverage off to one side. In amongst the trees is a narrow path, worn by a million doggy feet. I however, don’t trust Cadie off leash on the path, so I took her up to the narrow, dog-feet-worn path, and I did my best not to slip while I was up there.

Cadie it turns out is a hunter. She was not interested in walking along and smelling things, instead she decided to lie in wait for some prey. Which might have worked had her huge mother not been standing beside her, giving away her location.

Fortunately today was better, we got to the park for a good run, but I can see that all of this resting is taking its toll on her, she’s anxious and stir crazy, so I’m hoping to get her out for a good long walk, and run at dog park tomorrow. I am finally feeling human again.

Drama Queen

Poor Cadie, she thought she was going on a play date to the park, we were within view of the park when the freezing rain started. Salt’s mother stopped, turn to me and said, “this isn’t pleasant is it?” So we stopped, turned around and headed for home. Surprisingly Cadie didn’t object, she just quietly headed back with the rest of us.


Seeing as today is Friday, A and I decided to treat ourselves with Chinese for dinner, very yummy. All the drama that Cadie didn’t give us about not going to the park was poured out over dinner. She begged shamelessly for a sniff. She sneakily tried to slide her head below our blocking hands to steal food from A’s plate. When all of this failed she jumped up on the coffee table (oversized foot stool, so it’s okay), turned her back on us and sighed, loudly several times. When she finally felt that she could forgive us she turned back around and gave us the wounded bird look, that dogs give you to try to get their way. It was all very funny.

Uter is happily swimming away is his overly full tank, and Cadie is sleeping on the couch. Great Friday.

Spring Fever

What a perfect day in so many ways. The sun was out, it was nice and warm, and Cadie finally got some decent exercise. I took her to the park for a full forty five minutes, where she ran and ran and ran I threw the ball continuously for most of that time. When she got tired and thirsty she decided to lie in the grass and stretch out to her full length. It was so good to know that she has gotten all of that energy out. After super we headed out for yet another walk, so she’s had a very full day, and I couldn’t be happier. Now, just like last night, I have two sleeping, and happy animals.

A Nice, Lazy Day

For our last day of vacation I got up early and took Cadie up to an off leash park. I thought change of scenery. We headed out, and passed Salt’s mom, who was on her way to work. We waved, and laughed as we continued to head up to the park. Cadie was easily the smallest dog there. We took the trails and headed east until we hit a fairly significant mud patch. When it was obvious that the rest of the path was impassable we headed back. What we didn’t do was take the time to stop and throw the ball, perhaps if I’d done that she’d have been ready for a nap when I finally got her home. She wasn’t. I had a lot of calls to attend to this morning, so my attention was split, Cadie did not like this at all, she kept throwing tennis balls at me, and barking loudly. Lesson learned, no matter how else we start our day, the Chuckit is an integral, and indisputable element.


Aside from the morning romp, the day was pretty quiet, as I mentioned this hasn’t been a restful vacation, which is fine, I knew that coming in, but I wanted to get some couch time in before I head back to the grindstone. That is what I had today. Then this evening I had two friends over for dinner, Salt’s mother A and Toby’s mother C. It was great, the move gave me a lot more stuff, as I said earlier this week, I now have new china, that have used twice since I moved in. I also have some lovely crystal glasses, so we sat and dined, then Salt, A, Cadie and myself walked C to the subway. A great night.

Uter is also becoming more adventurous since the move, he is now coming up to the side of the tank to say hello, not just to me, but to A and C as well. Still Uter has his setbacks, right now he is trying to swim out of the tank. Five minutes ago, though, he was trying to grab one of the stones at the bottom of his tank, with his mouth and drag it somewhere. God love you, and your never-give-up-attitude Uter.