laura simson photography: Dog Walking 101

Whoever said having 2 dogs is just as easy as having 1 has some explaining to do, or maybe they just haven't met Harvey and Belle. Belle is Phillip's "dog sibling" i.e. his parents' dog. While they were on vacation in Costa Rica we volunteered to watch Belle, a West Highland White Terrier. She's not known for being the most welcoming to other dogs... Phillip likes to tell the story of the time she lunged at a Rottweiler's jugular in the vet's office. However, she and Harvey warmed up to each other soon enough. Well, maybe him more so than her. He seemed to enjoy the company, but she mostly just tolerated him. It was a different story on walks though. You would have thought they had been best friends forever. At first Belle would only walk 5 feet behind him, but by the end of the week they would walk right next to each other and sniff the same things, try to eat the same "gutterjerky" as we call it and bark at other dogs together. It got tricky when they had to get down to "business" though as Phillip found out. The trio had paused to let one dog relieve himself and as Phillip performed the dreaded duty that follows, the dogs had managed to tangle their leashes around his legs unbeknownst to him. Just then a car drove by close to the sidewalk and another neighbor walking her dog approached, sending everyone into a frenzy. Phillip went down... poo in hand (thank goodness it was bagged). Luckily he can laugh at himself, just as the neighbor did at the scene and I did when he returned and said "you will not believe what the dogs did." It makes it hard to be mad at them when you're laughing hysterically though. Bad dogs ;)

These pics are from a walk with the rascals around Lake Johnson one Saturday morning. Luckily, no humans were hurt.