One dog and an Old Pair of Running Shoes

My dog Chief had an appointment with the vet last week. A few days prior to his visit he got loose and took off with our other dogs, Buddy and Lizzy, and when he came back his back right foot was gimpy. And then the next day he wouldn’t move, he was just laying there like a lump on my bed, and when I tried to get him to go outside he just continued to lay there. I pulled on his collar, and he started growling. Panic set in. Was he in pain? I knew he needed to get his Lyme’s Disease vaccination…so I decided to let him rest, and I started doing some research about the disease. I concluded that if he would have contracted the disease, it wouldn’t have set in so soon. Pshew. A sigh of relief. But I called the vet to set up an appointment for the vaccination.

When we rolled into the driveway of the vet’s office, Chief looked all excited. Probably an overwhelming sensation of the many scents from many pets. We got out of the van and Margaret, one of the vets, greeted us with her happy-tired smile. She often looked tired from many hours of work, and few hours of sleep.

“Let’s get Chief on the scale before we give him his shot.” So I walked him over to the scale, and he walked on it like a pro. He weighed in at a whopping 58.2 pounds! Yikes!

“Chief, it’s time to start losing weight, you Lump!” He looks at me as if to say, “Psh. You should be talking.” Although I know he really doesn’t care what I look like, I knew that was a sign that we both could use more exercise to lose some unnecessary ‘lumps.’

So that very evening, I slipped on an old pair of running shoes, grabbed my water bottle, and we went for our first run of the summer. It was hard! The hills were killer. But, as we reached the half mile point, I felt really good about it. Sure we didn’t run the entire time, well let me rephrase, I didn’t run the entire time, but it was a good run. I felt successful. See, the definition of success doesn’t necessarily mean we ran the fastest or the longest, but it means that we did OUR best that we could! With a little time we’ll get faster and have the ability of running more than just a half mile or just a quarter of a mile   maybe we’ll run 2 miles!

Here we are at 58.2 and *** pounds, and soon we’ll hit our target weight! Praise God for the strength!