Little Miss Manners!

My poor Chica!  She will be glad to see ME go back to work tomorrow.  First I made her spend Friday in day care, then I made her go for a pack walk with the kids across the hall after she barely got up yesterday morning and today I put the icing on the fun cake!  After a lazy morning we went to McDonald's as usual for Sunday brunch.  About 2:00 I called my friend, Sam, to see if he was around.  He offered to show me and Chica around Green Lake in Orchard Park, where he likes to walk his dog, Axle.  When I went to voice mail, I decided to just take her around the block.  Shortly after we got home, Sam called back and we piled in the car to meet him and Axle. 

Green Lake is a neat little place off the beaten path.  We parked our cars and introduced the two dogs.  I had Chica off leash at the time as she seems to do better when she feels she has the freedom to move toward or away and she can't feel my energy directly.  They seemed to hit it off.  There was no growling or snapping.  So, we set off on a walk and we went up and down, spending some time at each end of the lake.  Around the 90 minute mark Chica started indicating she was about done with all this exercise, but Sam's wife was going to come meet us, so we set off on one more lap.  Axle would follow Chica and Chica would follow Axle and it was all very cute and social.  Then Axle, who's only about 2, decided it was time to play.  His way of trying to coax her into this was to go running up to her and bump into her or try to jump on her a little.  She was not having any of this kid's disrespectful treatment of his elders and set about teaching him a lesson by showing some of her teeth and getting her hair to stand on end.  It took a few times, but he got the message and back to peacefully co-existing we went for the remainder of our walk.  Since she never struck out at him with the intention of biting him, I did not correct her and I was a little glad to see her stick up for herself after last week's incident with the pitbull.  So, Bailey beware, your big sister will not have any nonsense disrupting her twilight years.  She wants a respectful comanion who will lay with her and walk with her and bring comfort to her.  God, she's going to kill me when I bring that puppy home....