On the Loose

A few weeks ago, we started talking about letting Tessa off of her leash more often. She's older now (3 years old), and tends to be a bit wiser. Also, all she ever wants to do is be with us. We're not really afraid of her running off, since wherever we go, she tends to follow.

She has been off of her leash before, but only when we are in the mountains. We are afraid of her running into traffic, so we would never let her off if we were anywhere near a street. In the Poconos, that's not really a problem as we're always staying at a place that has lots of land. So that was always the only place that we really felt comfortable letting her off the leash.

Until now.


One night after dinner, we took her to a nearby school to walk around. The school is set back pretty far from any roads, and they have huge fields for sports. We figured, hey, we'll let her off her leash and see what she does.

It turns out that she absolutely loves it. The minute I unclip her, it's like she's thinking, "I'm freeeeeeee!" But she's also really good, just as we expected she'd be. Her biggest problem is that she gets easily distracted, sniffing around instead of listening to us. Also, if she sees birds, she'll take off running after them. Luckily, she never goes far before turning around to come back to us, but this behavior reinforces the fact that we'll never let her off anywhere that could pose any type of dangers to her.

Anyway, we've been running her at the school pretty regularly now. We run her up and down the fields, encouraging her to chase us back and forth. And let me tell you--little girl is FAST. She really tears it up, and it's hilarious.

Last weekend, when we got home from visiting Michael's sister, we took her to the school for a bit of running time before it got dark. I decided to bring my camera to capture some action shots of her play. I cropped them quite a bit, so they're not the sharpest photos, but here are a couple of our favorites:

Look: She doesn't even have any legs touching the ground. She's running so fast, all four legs are in the air. And the ears? Straight up. So funny.

Here she is, once again barreling straight toward me. She runs as fast as she possibly can, then runs right in between my legs before slowing down and circling back to me for praise and a little rest. Love her.

We're going to try to take her out this weekend and get some more pics, and perhaps some video. If we get anything good, I'm sure I won't be able to resist sharing it.

Have I mentioned how much I love spring/summer? It is such a joy to be outside.