Nicole Tasker Woods

For the past few months, Ryan has been waking up at 4:30am on Fridays so that he can get into work early to attend to business that needs his attention during the wee hours of the morning. As a result he gets to leave the office early in the afternoon, which is awesome. He gets that time to go home early and nap with Cali or run errands, go to doctor’s appointments–stuff that he could not do because he was at work.

Another side effect of Ryan working these strange, early hours on Fridays is that it is hard to sleep through him being up and about. He does take Cali out on these mornings, but most of the time I am wide awake for about an hour after his alarm rings at 4:30am. Well, this morning was no different…

…we both kind of woke up around 4:15am. I had to pee, of course, and I think that Ryan’s body was anticipating his alarm to ring soon so he was up as well. After I returned to bed from using the restroom, I saw that Ryan had pulled Cali from the foot of the bed into his arms, both of them facing me. After they were done smooching and cuddling, Cali slowly pulled herself to her feet, did a 3-point turn and landed in my arms, her back to my chest in the cutest little ball-o-dog you have ever seen.

She stayed like that lying in my arms until Ryan was ready to leave and take Cali to the bathroom. Then she gingerly made her way off the bed, down the stairs and outside to the nearest patch of ivy. And then she was back in bed with me.

A couple of days ago, Ryan and I took Cali for a very long walk. Ryan, being the Alpha-male that he is, has total control of Cali with just a few commands when they are out for a walk. And because of this, he can walk her without a collar or a leash. Me? I could NEVER do that with Cali. She would run away without a second thought. But with Ryan? Once she gets more than about 10 steps away he says, “Hey–stay with us” and she stops walking and waits for us to catch up. If she gets really far away and he breaks out the, “You’re going to get a spank!” then she walks right back towards us and stays between me and him. It is the funniest thing!

Well, on this very long walk that we took a few days ago, we found our way to the Cal Lutheran campus, which is quite large and very pretty–a lot like Wheaton. There is a stream that flows through the center of campus and a bridge over the stream. Cali has so much fun running in the water, getting a big drink and eating thistles that were growing on the bank of the stream. It wasn’t long before she came across two ducks minding their own business and that is when she decided to terrorize them (because why leave a duck alone?). She chased these ducks that were flying low, as if to entice the chase even more. And to top it all off, there were some guys playing rugby near the stream and they were totally egging her on, so she kicked it up a notch and continued to run large circles on the ground, with the ducks circling up above.

When the ducks finally flew higher out of sight, Cali came back full circle to the stream and tried to leap from one side to the other. But she failed miserable, and landed very hard on the other side. Instead of stretching her body out long like a puma, she kept her legs bent and underneath her as if she was a bunny rabbit hopping along. We did not notice it that night, but the next morning, it was clear that she was sore. So now our crazy pup is limping around the house, but still with a smile on her face. Obviously, the excitement of the duck hunt made the pain totally worth it.