This is a follow up to: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Poor planning on my part — or not — but the long weekend played havoc with my running plans.  Ideally, I should find myself running wherever I happen to wake up on any given morning.  On this instance it happened to be in Red [...]

This is a follow up to: Parts 1, 2, 3 & 4
The last week has shown a marked improvement in both my times and Sparkle’s attitude. Would you believe that she nudged me out the door on Monday, pulled all the way to the park, and was running before we hit the asphalt. [...]

This is a follow up to: Parts 1, 2 & 3
Not counting my five kilometer road race on Saturday, Sparkle and I are completed eight runs to date. And things continue to improve. For myself, I’ve had one of my best weeks ever, completing a total of nearly twelve kilometers over three runs, and [...]

This is a follow up to: Parts 1 & 2
Six runs down, Sparkle continues to do well (with the exception of one messy Friday morning — check out the comments in Part 2, link above.) Our focus has improved and my endurance is increasing for these early morning jaunts that used to be sheer torture. [...]

This is a follow up to: Part 1
Three runs down, Sparkle is taking to the jogging business quite well. I updated in the comments of Part 1 that our biggest issue has been her reluctance to de-bowel upon command. The result of that is she goes out full and the impulse to clean [...]

I’ve been thinking on the topic, I’ve decided to post some of my research and (eventually) observations from starting a running program with a dog. Hopefully this will be useful to someone digging through Google searches one day. This is “part one” of many. (Though if I get more than five official entries [...]

Sparkle and my morning routine now includes some jogging. I’ve decided to steal back a small fragment of my day and by getting up a half an hour earlier I’m hoping to squeeze in a longer stroll — or three times a week — a five kilometer run in the nearby park. Tomorrow [...]

Our happy little pup is growing up. Today is the mutt-skee’s fourth birthday, likely to be spent sleeping and relaxing in one of her usual spots in a sunbeam.

If anyone feels so inclined to leave the old girl a message in the comments below, we’ll be sure to — uh — pass it on. (Click [...]

1) May is the month when most (if not all) traces of snow are gone for the season. This year it has been a little tricky to tell for certain, but in all likelihood by mid-month we will be planting our garden. Mmm…. fresh garden produce. The rhubarb is already emerging.
2) May, as [...]

Brett writes me an email last night:
So, don’t ask why, but we were discussing dog cones at work today, so a friend of mine hit Google images, typed in “dog cone”, and posted the first result… and Lenore and I thought, I think I recognize that dog…
Poor Spark. What a way to spend your [...]

If there was ever any question that we produced a dog-person, it was not refuted by our little yesterday-adventure. Sunday was the first official day of Sparkle’s obedience classes. The four of us — Karin, Claire, Sparkle, and myself — loaded into the car and drove to the pup’s doggy daycare (who were [...]

December 28
With only a few days left in this blogging marathon, I once again found myself back home and spared with a relatively quiet day to catch up on some much needed down-time. It’s funny, though. We’ve been scooting about the province, visiting at and with a variety of people, and celebrating [...]