Or the smelly smelly fun of a spoiled working dog.
We adopted Princess over 5 years ago now, and while she remains a crazy goofy escape prone husky, she clearly knows whose pack she's with and now knows to keep us in sight and in ear shot on those rare occasion we let her roam free, off leash.
We still hesitate to do it, as huskys are very prey driven and known to just run and keep running: An in shape husky can run for hours, which means they can get very far very fast if they decide to escape and chase something.
The beach at our marina is as good a place as any to let Princess try her new freedom. There is only a small narrow path to and back from the beach, so we figure we'll eventually get her back if for some reason she decides to ignore us. We also have good tasty treats with us to entice her back.
We'd been doing that for a few weeks and we could see Princess becoming more and more adventurous, and ignoring our recalls more frequently.
Well, what had to happen did: She decided to ignore me one afternoon to go dig in a fresh (or maybe not so fresh!) kill she found in stagnant waters on the marina side of the island, where I can't follow her due to the heavy brush and swampy like conditions.
It took me ages to get her back, and Di -who could see Princess from the boat- tells me the goofy dog rolled around on top of the carcass to get all the stinky smells on her.
So, back at the dock she got the inevitable shampoo in the freezing weather. Despite being cold weather dogs, our veterinarian told us you're not supposed to get huskys wet in cold weather. They can and do get pneumonia. Their fur only protects them when dry of course.
I shampooed her 3 times, an experience she clearly didn't enjoy much, but at least she was very polite and didn't fight me or argue. We got that over with as soon as we could before drying her off inside the boat. I dried my freezing hands as well.
But not all cold is bad: Pretty soon Princess got to run around at Sand Island, where she was in husky paradise of fresh snow, and plenty of wild animals.
Back at Salpare marina, Princess had her annual vet check up. We decided that on the way she'd help us exchange 2 split fenders under warranty since the marine shop and the pet shop are in the same center on the island.
I had started training her to pull our shopping cart a year ago: She loves it, and you can see by her tail and body language how natural it is for her to pull. It's time now to resume and continue the training.
Once we got her vaccinated with 3 shots, we let her choose her own treat.
On our way back we stopped for an outdoor Pizza rest, then swapped our broken fenders. Luckily they carry lifetime warranties against cracks, and the shop had new ones in stock, so we were able to bring back our new fenders.
Time for rest. Being a Princess is hard work sometimes. But luckily she has a throne on the fore deck, where we put her water and food bowls. There she can relax and survey her domain.
We just happen to live in it.
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