Pet Beach

Dee Dee was not interested in taking her medicine this morning or eating. I read an article that said dogs "resent" you hiding their pills in their food and that this can make them avoid eating at all. The word "resent" made me laugh. I think her non interest in food had more to do with a body full of fluids and the pressure that makes on her other organs. For a dog who has always loved to eat, it's depressing to see her sniff at and walk away from a bowl of dog food.

So we took her on a walk on the causeway and then headed to the dog beach, hoping that would lift her spirit--and ours. It was 79 degrees with light winds.

 

The good news is that she passed three dogs on this narrow path and there was nary a bark. Old dogs are the best.

When we got to the water, two women came up to us dogs in tow to do what dog people do: What kind of dog is she? How old? And so on. They mistook Dee Dee's bony spine for the markings of a Rhodesian Ridgeback. I can see how they made that mistake. Dee Dee wasn't threatened by their dogs at all, but we weren't sure what she would do. We told the women that she was a mixed breed, probably Basenji, and that she was old and not doing very well. They understood immediately and said it was a good day to be at the beach, "YOLO" (You only live once.)

When we got home, she again refused to eat, so that was sad, but we were finally able to get her to eat one clump of wet dog food with her meds in it, about two hours late. Small victory. She did look a bit resentful, if you want to know the truth.

We decided to take a walk to get out of the house and away from our sadness, so we hopped on our bikes and headed downtown. We locked our bikes at Main Street, across from Al Fresco's and walked down to Edgewater Dr. From there, we walked all the way to Clearwater along the waterfront. We turned at Stephenson Creek and headed east back to the mostly shaded Pinellas Trail. Then we walked the trail all the way back to Main Street, about 6 miles for the entire walk.

We had lunch and got her to eat a little bit of wet dog food.

We decided to ride our bikes back out to Honeymoon Island and walk the dog beach. The temperature had warmed up to 86 degrees, again with light winds. The beaches were pretty crowded, but we managed to keep our distance from everyone.

We had turkey burgers, green beans, and rice for dinner. After dinner, Dee Dee finally seemed interested in eating, so I mixed up a batch of half dry and half wet dog food for her. She ate all of it.

I raked up leaves and fallen avocados at 7:00 a.m. this morning because the lawn service comes around 8:00 a.m. I cleaned up two small beds by pulling up weeds and grass. I wished our neighbor a "Happy Friday Morning" as he let the dog out. He said, "As a retired person, do you even know it's Friday?" That made me laugh.

We all have our troubles.

18.15 miles biking
10.2 miles walking