Sascha

So this blog is titled Sascharuns, and in my little introductory bio, I say how she's my loyal training partner and these are some of our adventures... Well, as you've probably noticed, there haven't been any posts about Sascha yet. So to Sascha, I say, this post is dedicated to you.

Since I'm currently taking my annual running sabbatical, Sascha is, too. I don't think she's enjoying it as much as I am. Usually after a couple days of not running, we're both pretty wired and ready to run. We haven't run for 8 days. I'm feeling pretty good about that, but Sascha, not so much. Almost every night when I get home from work, she's waiting at the back gate for me, doing her talk/howl, telling me it's time to run. Then she gets super excited and tears around the yard for a bit, comes inside and tears around the house for a while. Occasionally she'll stop and do her little head-thing, which means she really wants to play/run. Eventually, she figures out that nothing's happening, so she reluctantly lays down on her bed and sleeps.

Then the next morning comes and often times she'll wake me up with kisses all over my face. I try not to think that I saw her licking her butt last night, or eating deer poop when we walked around town the previous day. Anyway, I'll get up, let her outside, and of course she thinks that means we're going running. Sorry, Sasch.

We do go on daily walks around town, and she does enjoy those, especially walking past all of the barky-dog houses where the dogs seemingly never get to leave their yard. I just know Sascha looks at them as if to say "yeah, that's right, I'm out again, walking all over town, maybe even going running later, while you're still stuck in there. That really sucks for you, dog."

On Saturday, I was baking my first ever ham to take to the CORK Christmas Party. It was tasty and sure did smell good, too. Sascha noticed the smell and came in the kitchen to just watch as I was carving it. I am very good about not feeding people-food to Sascha, and as a result, she's not very farty. I like this. On Rumble day, after she's raced 20 miles, I do allow her a hotdog and hamburger as a treat for her effort. But that's pretty much it for the year. However, feeling weak and vulnerable because I haven't taken her running for over a week, I caved. I had a huge hunk of something from the ham that I thought Sascha would love. I mean, she devours a few pig's ears weekly, so fresh baked pig shouldn't be too big of a disruption to her digestive system. She took it, ran wildly around outside, and had her way with that hunk of ham. So Sunday we were walking around town, just an easy stroll. She puked not once, not twice, but thrice! Yeah, baby, we really are meant for each other. I obviously gave her no sympathy, but sure could smell the salty scent of ham. Mm, baby, nothing better than that! Oh yeah, that's why I don't feed her people-food.

It's getting close to Sascha's favorite time of the year - snowshoeing season! We're anxiously awaiting more snow in the central Oregon mountains so we can properly enjoy our winter wonderland.