The Running of The Doodle

           Merry Christmas!  (if that's what you're into)  My family does Christmas on the 24^th so today is reserved for naps and leftover ham sandwiches.  But I found out today that The Doodle hadn’t ever been running.  I suppose this makes sense since dad had a hip replacement, baby brother just had nose surgery and mum doesn’t believe in exercise.

So I broke from our family tradition of Christmas day laziness and borrowed mum’s brand-new-though-two-year-old running shoes.  They are really old lady walking shoes and are three sizes too big for my little feet.  But dammit, a doodle needs a well-rounded childhood.  I would take him running.

I put on two pairs of socks and the shoes, stretched, hydrated and grabbed the leash.  I run 5 miles of steep, narrow mountain trails with my ridgeback mix every weekend, so I felt pretty confident heading out on this adventure.

But running with a Doodle pup is like trying to run with a miniature Snuffleupagus.  He would run, giddy and floppy and flailing in a kinda straightish line, which would have been sloppy but sustainable.  But every ten feet or so he’d get distracted by a squirrel, a lemon tree, or a particularly delicious smelling rock and dart in front of me or wrap around me, tripping me or tangling me in the leash.  Between the shoe issue and the unwieldy pup the whole half mile or so was made up of a repeating sequence of flop, flop, flop, stumble, gasp, flop, flop, flop, stumble, etc.

And I learned a physics lesson: shoes that are too big actually undermine rather than bolster your equilibrium.  They are not skis.  And my equilibrium isn’t great to begin with.  But that may also have something to do with Femme Mountain Goat Theory*.

In conclusion, I think my baby brother and I will stick to walking, wrestling and fighting over squeaky toys.

*Femme Mountain Goat Theory (noun): the idea that femmes, like mountain goats are so accustomed to standing and walking on steep inclines (in the form of high heels and mountains) that if you take the incline away both groups are actually more rather than less clumsy.