Swimming Mania

I just need to vent...

Since I only work 3 days a week, I have a lot of time off to spend with Jackson. We call it mommy-doggy time. We have one of two things that he loves to do; go to the park and throw the ball for hours or go swimming at a special indoor dog pool. Today we decided to go swimming. Jackson absolutely loves it. I think he can recognize the road we take to get there now because he starts to whine when we get on the highway. He cannot stand it when we get there and he knows what is about to happen. The girls at the front desk know that I like to pay first when I get inside, instead of when we leave because he tends to be quite a pill when we have to exit the building(which is where my story is going). Gaining control of him is not a task my skinny little arms are good at.

(See how he has his eye on that green toy in her hand. He is about to go crazy.)

He has a history of swimmers tail, which is over exertion and use of his tail. Also very common in labs. It becomes limp and flaccid and he can't use it for about a day. Today I noticed that his tail was showing signs of becoming limp after about 45 minutes of swim. That to me means time to go....So I thought..

I took him outside to go potty one last time and off we were to the car. On my way out the door, a lady who worked there stopped me and said "oh his tail looks loose". I acknowledged her statement, and thought it was amusing that she described it as 'loose'.  I laughed as we were almost out the door, when Jackson turned around and saw a woman coming up behind us. He took off running towards her, my hand still in the loop on the leash, and just like that he had pulled so hard that I fell to the ground. I looked down and the side of my pinky nail was hanging off. How on earth did that even happen? The pain was throbbing and blood was slowly dripping down the side of my hand (sorry if this is graphic) and onto the ground. A girl had to chase him down, step on the leash as he had taken off running through the building like a mad man. I do not know what had gotten into him but oh boy was he in trouble.

As a girl held my dog for me outside the bathroom, another woman helped me heal my wounds and band-aid up my poor nail. Needless to say I was very upset and beyond angry at his little furry butt. Sadly, he had to be escorted out to the car. I thought that only happens to drunk guys at bars??? Ughhh, you would think that 3 months at boot camp would help, but not today!