Sorry we killed your dog

I was trying to be nice.

At my last-minute suggestion we brought my parent's dog along on our family jog yesterday afternoon. After all, "Take the dog for walks (with a bag if you can stand it :) )" was on the list of "chores" they left for us to take care of.

(On a tangential note: My mother even suggested bringing along a gardening glove to reach inside the bag to pick up the poop with "if you can't stand the warmth and the texture." Disgusting. Everything they say about your own kid's poop being just fine and everyone else's poop—including canine's—appearing as intolerable as you would expect poop to be, is true. Every word.)

He seemed just fine when we started out. But by about three blocks, which is just far enough to not want to be bothered with turning around and dropping him back off at home, he was heavily panting and not looking too hot altogether.

I thought, "Man, this dog is out of shape."

What I should have thought was, "Man, this dog is PUSHING 90 IN DOG YEARS." (Sorry Riley).

We kept running, basically pulling the dog as we went.

Eventually, it was too much. There we are on the side of the road, trucking it towards the stop light when I notice the dog putting a lot of drag on the leash. I look over, and the poor thing is trying to squat (to relieve himself), and run at the same time. He had left quite the trail. Sort of like a deer's only bigger. And smellier. And really not like a deer's at all.

I about lost it laughing. And after Mikey made some comment about "Well, when you get the bowels a'bouncin'. . ." I basically had to stop running.

It was there that I decided we (me, baby-in-stroller and dog) would turn around and walk for a bit while Mike finished our planned route and caught up to us on the way back. It would have looked pretty bad to tell my parents upon their arrival back in the States, that while their house was still standing their dog—unfortunately—was not . . .

I have never seen that dog swagger like that. Nor have I ever seen his tongue sticking out so far, nearly dragging on the pavement.

Poor thing. His heart rate probably didn't return to normal for a good four hours.