Flying Poodles

At last! An answer to the question: what does it take to wear out a poodle?

Yesterday I took Elly and Dancer for a nice long walk off-leash at the Sandy River Delta park (also called Thousand Acres Park, but it’s actually more than a thousand acres). Off-leash, dirt trails, very few other dogs. Light rain. I even found a mud puddle for them to play in.

Mud! A poodle's joy!

They ran and ran and ran and then we headed back. Of course, I took a wrong path and we ended up walking for close to two hours. They were exhausted–so was I–when we got back to the car. And just before we found the car, I found a smoldering pile of trash that someone had dumped and burned. So I had to call the fire department–I didn’t want to hear on the news that there had been a major fire because no one dealt with a little tiny one–and then wait for them, and then show the firefighters where it was.

Volunteer firefighters

The firefighters loaded up water vests and grabbed their shovels and we walked back into the woods to show them the trash dump. You have to imagine this part: plump gray-haired woman with two filthy standard poodles leads five young healthy firefighters to trash fire.

They put out the fire, I went back to the car, and I went home… gave the dogs a bath, and they’re still tired this morning.