DocAndersen
Dylan and Raven were jealous of the wonderful walks posted on Virily. They asked me to take pictures and share them, showing off their short walk. They, Dylan and Raven are getting older, so we can’t take the long walks we used to take. Dylan is 8 and Raven Is nearly 7. We shorten the summer walks because of the heat. They, the Labs, do well with winter, spring, and fall walk. When their bodies can adjust and cool off. When it gets hotter, it is much harder on their bodies. We have to be aware of heat stroke. We carry water with us, and we stop more often in shady areas. Where in the winter we walk 4.o miles a day give or take a little, in the summer that walks drops.
We end up between 1.5 and 2.6 miles a day. We have to take the long game approach so that the older dogs don’t get sick. Plus, per our vet, they are both a couple of pounds heavier than they should be, and that impacts dogs on walks. Anyway, welcome to the daily walk! We start out going down what Raven calls the death hill. Sh HATES walking up the hill. It is funny, the hill we go down is the same height as the hill we have to go up to start the walk. We leave our house, head to the street that goes down the big hill and go down the big hill. We then go up the hill, but the difference between the first part of the hill and the second part is the second more gradual.
Where the first hill is less than a ¼ mile and about a 180-foot change, the second hill is a ½ mile and around 200 feet up. Raven hates the hill the second time around. When we leave our neighborhood and head up the first uphill, towards the firehouse, we are on the business street part of the walk. The road we walk next to is the main road of Germantown, Maryland. By the time we get to the firehouse, we normally see 10-20 cars. At the first station, we are near to the top of the hill, we turn left on another road. The second road goes towards the Potomac River or heads towards Gaithersburg. The apartments in the last two pictures are right before we reach the fire station!
More of the R&D walk tomorrow!
