A Visit To The Dog Park

Wow, was I having some pretty strange dreams last night, but when I woke up from them, I could not remember anything about them. I know I was deep into a dream and I woke up around midnight and I was drenched in sweat. Hiker did not wake me up until after 6:30 am which is about 30 minutes late for her. I was surprised when I let Hiker outside that it was only 48° since it has been in the low 60's the past few mornings. There was no marine layer either. Took Hiker for a walk a little after 7:30 am. I've noticed that the last couple of days that Hiker has been “skittish” when we go out on or walks. Yesterday afternoon, she acted like she didn't want to go for her afternoon walk and this morning, she seemed frightened by every person she saw. That is really strange because usually she is so friendly with everyone she meets. So I have no idea what that's all about because she seems OK at home. This afternoon I took her over to Central Park to walk around. I noticed there were not any people or dogs in the dog park (Central Bark), so I decided to take Hiker in the fenced area and turn her loose to see what she would do. She had never been in a dog park before. When I first took the leash off, she acted like she didn't know what to do, so I picked up one of the tennis balls that they have there for the dogs and tossed it. She took off after it, but then she didn't pick it up and I think it's because she knew it was not HER ball. When she looked back at me and saw that I was about 40 feet away from her, she came running back to me as fast as she could. I kept trying to get her to run around, but she would not go very far away from me, which is a good thing I guess. It was pretty windy over there.