add water and she becomes a real dog

Yesterday at the park Belly seemed really hot, foaming at the mouth a little and everything. So on the way home we stopped at White Oak park, which is a one-mile trail that surrounds a small body of water (lake? pond? I dunno). I'd taken her there before for actual walking, but this time I wanted to let her take a dip. At first I let her go in with her leash still attached, but then we found a beautiful stick, so I unleashed her and threw it for her again and again, and she actually FETCHED it and brought it back more than once. Simply amazing.

And then.

She saw a duck.

She looks back at me longingly. Can I? Can I, huh? Oh, okay.

So I sent her off after the duck, but the duck kept moving and Belly kept following. She was pretty far out there and I knew she was getting tired, but she was determined. I was getting a little nervous, afraid she'd get too tired to swim back, so I kept calling her, but she was set on that damn duck. Finally, when she was about two feet away from the duck, she looked back to shore, saw how far away I was, and turned around.

The image of her swimming back to me, her little head bobbing, her legs working so hard beneath the water, brings tears to my eyes. SHE. WAS. TIRED. She's not the young whippersnapper she used to be. When she got to shore, I gave her lots of praise, hooked her up to the leash, and brought her home. She slept, wet, on the couch for most of the evening, dreaming of that damn duck. How yummy it would'a been in her tummy.

God, I love that beast.