| |
The Cheyenne Story - part 9 - Being Suburbanites:
<--Back to part 8
![]()
After living in the city, there were many adjustments we had to make now that we were out in the 'burbs. For one thing, it was very strange to be living where there was only one streetlight on each block. This made nightly walks very interesting, since Cheyenne was mostly black, and it was usually hard to see here when we were out walking.
And did we walk! I thought we walked a lot when we lived in the city, but the area we covered was kind of small, since we didn't cross too many of the main streets for some reason. Out here, Cheyenne just wanted to go! We would aim her south on our block, and she would just want to go in a straight line. I often joked that if she had her way, she would walk keep walking until she hit New Orleans. We also added the grocery bag to the poopie paper supplies. When we were in the city, we would just pick up the paper and toss it into the nearest garbage can. Out here, the nearest can seemed like blocks away, so we needed the bag to contain the smell.
It was out here that we discovered the wonders of the retractable leash. After using one of those for a couple days, I wonder how we ever got along without it. Cheyenne got so much more exercise on our walks, since she had so much more range to run around. She would run ahead of us, find something on the lawn to interest her, dawdle by it until we passed her, and then have to run to catch up to us, and then it would start all over again. She really loved it.
![]()
She also liked trying to chase all the squirrels and bunnies. We saw the occasional squirrel in the city, but never a bunny, and there are tons out here. I often wondered what she would do if she caught one, but I think that I'd really rather not know.
She did catch a squirrel once, but fortunately I missed it. Stephanie always had a problem walking Cheyenne, because she was so strong. This time, the two of them were out walking and Cheyenne ran ahead and ran around a tree. Before Stephanie realized what had happened, Cheyenne had a squirrel in her mouth! She tried to get Cheyenne to drop it, then tried to pry her jaws apart, but she was just too strong, so she was just walking around with the squirrel in her mouth. She finally dropped it, but by that time the squirrel was a goner. Stephanie said she doesn't think Cheyenne bit it real hard or anything, but that the squirrel must have died from the shock. For Cheyenne, however, it was her finest moment. Stephanie said that she looked like she was so proud of what she had done. I, of course, was mortified when I heard.
One time Cheyenne's strength got the better of her, and us. The landlord had a steel cable that ran from the house to the garage, that he would hook his dog to when he came to work on the house. He said we could use it any time we wanted.
![]()
One sunny day, we were doing something in the yard, so we had Cheyenne on the makeshift dog run. Stephie was in the yard with her, and I went into the house for something. As I walked into the bedroom we use as an office I hear Steph yell "Cheyenne, NO!" and then a loud thump, and I see the shadow of something big fly by the closed shades. I run outside, and Stephanie is hugging Cheyenne to hold on to her. The cable is all over the yard, and there is a piece of wood on the sidewalk.
The cable had been fastened to the left side of the window frame, which was nailed to the house with these nails that looked more like small railroad spikes. Cheyenne had seen someone with a dog walk by the front of the house and took off after them, and pulled the board right off the side of the house! It's a wonder that no one was hurt by the nail-studded board, which is what I saw fly past the window. The landlord was great about it. He said that because the house was so old, the board was put up with the old style nails that didn't hold particularly too well, as we had seen. He nailed the board back up, but the dog run was a thing of the past.
It was around this point that we started taking Cheyenne to obedience class. Although she was easily the oldest in the class, she did reasonably well. The trainer, Dave Wieczorek, was very patient with her and us. He didn't think she was too old to train and he was right. Although the real reason we took her was to get her accustomed to being around other dogs, so that she wouldn't be so aggressive to the neighbor dogs when we were out on our walks. For that alone, the classes were a success. And Stephanie continued to take her to class, almost to the very end.
On to part 10 -->
NOTE: this site was developed in nothing more than HTML and JavaScript.
While there are no ads, there are a couple pop-up windows with extra content. You may have
problems viewing parts of this site if you are using any kind of pop-up blocker, such as
Pop-Up Blocker. I recommend disabling the blocker
while viewing Cheyenne's Pages, but make sure you turn it back on before you leave!
|