Lovely Afternoon

So we went on a little walk this afternoon as planned and had a blast.

I parked at the footy oval and walked for about a half hour, up to one of the off leash dog parks and Charlie chased the ball for about five minutes or so until a lady arrived with two little terrier things and I packed the ball away. I was going to leave, but figured I'd just let Charlie have a meet and greet and see how he went.

He was fine, just his usual anti social self.

It seemed like the time to be at the park, though, because quickly afterwards a lady arrived with a nine month old Airedale puppy, then a family arrived with a shepherd mix, then a man and his chubby border collie came in. Quite a few strange dogs and people, and one of the little terrier things got the zoomies, but Charlie did really well. He did a bit of sniffing, kind of joined in with some of the chasing games, but he was more interested in smooching up to the people and getting pats.

We were there for about a further ten or fifteen minutes, then I figured it was getting time to head back so we did another half hour walk back to the car. We were a bit early, so had another game of fetch- all up, Charlie had about an hour and a half of constant movement, so he's now exhausted and sleeping very soundly on his bed.

It's the best and kind of also the worst thing with kelpies, and something Charlie's definitely got- they can and will just keep going and going and going, even when they're ready to drop.

I had a friend tell me a while ago that some friends of her had their dingo cross kelpie just drop dead one afternoon in summer; she'd been running for ages, playing fetch with the kids, and it was just too much for her. They don't let on that they're exhausted, they just keep pushing themselves. Exhausted, in pain, they don't let on and just push and push until they just have literally nothing left.