Run, run, run

 Booker has very quickly shown me that he was born to run!  He absolutely loves it.  So far we have primarily run when he has to be leashed either on my road or along trails that aren't very busy and he has done well.  

Today I decided to bite the bullet and took him over to a local trail to see how he would do with lots of distractions.  It was a cool but nice day and the trail was much busier than it normally is.  Hence there were a ton of distractions.

There were people walking and running alone and in groups.  Some had small children and some had dogs.  

When we got there, he was extremely excited and wound up.  Some people purposely train their dogs to run out in front of them, however, I have always trained my do9gs to run right at my left side. 

As soon as we started running he bolted out front - stretching the bungee of the running leash as far as it would go.  I had them on a double dog connector and poor Sisko was like "What the hell?" as he has run miles with me and reliably stays by my side.  And Booker is STRONG.  Way stronger than you would think a 7 month old puppy could be.  I kept correcting him but he was on a mission.  And he was weaving back and forth in front Sisko and myself and I was afraid he was going to take me out. 

Close to one mile in we caught up with some guys "rucking" and one of them had an older, but ecited black lab.  I slowed to a walk and tried to walk past them as Booker tried to pull over to him to say "HI".

I thought that the whole run was going to be a disaster.  However, once we hit the mile mark, he started to settle into a nice rhythm.  When we came up behind someone walking I had to slow a little to make sure he wouldn't cross over to them and when we passed someone facing us I got way over because he was bound and determined to greet every person we saw.  

We made it 5 miles and he showed no signs at all of wanting to slow down.  It gives me hope that he can and will learn to be a great running partner.  And considering the distractions we faced and times I had to slow down or even walk, we ended with a pretty good pace.