Walking the dog

Hello everyone. I've been rounding off last month. and of course, in my business the next month's custom starts the next next day! But here I am back on blogger again, thank goodness,.

I've been meaning to post about me and Skabenga and our walks every afternoon after work. When we lived in Marquard, Eddy was never leashed; she always ran free, even into other people's gardens and if their doors were open, she'd run through the house. Nothing was sacred to that dear old girl: may she rest in peace! But as soon as Skabenga was old enough for walkies, I'd leash him up at home and walk him to the golf course entrance about 800m from our house. I'd slip the choker chain off and immediately he and Eddy would dash into the blue. I did many, many, MANY posts about our early morning walks in Marquard. 

One of our last early morning walks in Marquard before we moved to the Drakensberg

When we arrived at the farm in October 2016, I used the leash once on Skabenga. We walked the length of the servitude and when we got to the exit gate, I realized there was no need to leash the dog. Of course, as I slipped his chain, he dashed into the long grassy fields following Eddy. The whole time we lived there, Skabenga dashed here and there all over the farm on our walks. I posted many, many, MANY times about our early morning (with headlamps in winter) and daily walks on the farm. 

 Dogs following Grant who was off to fix a fence; the tools  were in the saddle bags  

 The dogs loved plodging in the river. I'd been up and down to this part of the farm about a dozen times while the ladies (see Namusa) were clearing brambles from the river bank. My Samsung Health app on my phone showed that I and the dogs, were doing 10, 000 steps per day. 

We subsequently moved to a private estate with wildlife running free across our gardens or in the nature reserve beyond the fence. This is where Grant built a house which we never lived in. At the time,  Grant warned me that I'd have to leash Skabenga AND Eddy. *sigh* Now I had to take first one dog for a walk on the leash and return. Then I'd take the other dog. This bugged me and of course, when preparing one dog, the other would bounce up and down and bark furiously! Total chaos. One morning as I woke up, I decided to try and walk the dogs in the dark and off leash. This worked perfectly even when there were zebra and wildebeest grazing in the fields beyond our house. After work, it was generally misty over the mountains when I walked the dogs. I posted umpteen posts about our walks  - and even one about zebra in the mist. 

When Caroline, who owned the big house we were living in on the estate returned to SA, we moved temporarily to another estate. There we lived in a shack; one of Estelle and Steve's accommodation units. I took Skabenga for walks off-leash as the surrounding wild garden we lived in was huge and isolated from the other houses. He and I also did many nighttime walks which I posted about.


The day after I moved to the farm where I presently rent a cottage from my very kind farmer friends, I let Skabenga out of the gate for our walk. The first thing he did was to rush to the next door fence behind which 11 dogs live with their humans. What a noise of barking and yelping as the smaller dogs were trampled. This went on for three months even though I tried to call, the excitement ran too high with him hurling himself at the fence this side and the other dogs doing the same from the other side.

Colette's husband, Bardy bought me a collar and leash in Winterton and that afternoon I slipped the collar over Skabenga's head and clipped the leash on. Now we walk quite a wide circle away from the neighbor's gate and out of the farm entrance. There I unclip the leash and Skabenga is free to run. On the way back, I clip the leash onto his collar before we enter the gate and then we walk sedately back into my cottage garden!

Either way and any way: Skabenga doesn't care... AS LONG AS HE GETS A WALK A DAY!

I'm linking to Saturday Critters with Eileen here 

HAPPY SATURDAY TO YOU ALL!