Big Day for a Little Dog

It was a glorious day for a ride into the city with the pup, to try him out on a leash for the first time. We began in an empty parking lot at Lowe's and he refused to move at all. It must have been the pavement. Then we picked him up, back into the van to try a grassy area near a Dairy Queen. He did walk about for a few minutes and then sat down for good, again. OK, that's enough for now, we thought, and then got back into the van and went to the Guitar Center where Dave could try out guitars, while I stayed in the van praying he wouldn't buy any. Chumley snoozed.

Now it was time to get into Chattanooga for the big Octoberfest walkabout. It was stop and start for a few yards, but soon we were meeting with people who wanted to pet the pup, and coo over how cute he is. He loved the attention and demonstrated what a big boy puppy he was, on a leash and all. Wiggly, wiggly, bite bite bite. It was getting warm in the sun, and a former pug owner warned us about getting overheated, overfed, and overstimulated. Was that for us or the dog?
 Eventually we got into the shade and after stopping for numerous people asking about the dog, we met a couple who told us about Pug Fest in Atlanta next weekend. Imagine a room with 500 pugs! O my.


As we walked along we spied a group of Pomeranians  Papillons, just as Chumley did. He stood erect and sniffed the air. We proceeded cautiously and allowed some closer inspection. Then the yipping and yapping began from the Poms, Paps followed by Chum's response. This was a good test of the leash. We all felt it was a successful encounter.

The Chattanooga Market was packed with visitors and oompah bands played loudly, vendors cooked bratwurst and potato pancakes and kids ran around us frantically. It was overwhelming for us adults, and yet the dog took it all calmly.

I left Dave and the pug for a minute in order to visit the ladies room where I met Irene from Knit Group and Lois our former real estate agent. Then minutes later I met Kathy also from Knit Group and her husband who recognized Chumley from the blog. What a small world. Actually that is what is so wonderful about our new home, that we could be in a place where we have already made friends and could bump into them in such a crowd. Earlier at Lowe's  Dave met up with the commissioner of his baseball league! We love it here.

Hey! No pinching the inch!!

Chumley waves the white flag in surrender

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There is a fenced in dog park behind the market pavilion and Dave took the pup there to have a great big drink of water and calm down and then we promenaded back to the van to head for home. They immediately fell asleep and I stopped midway in Soddy Daisy to buy Chinese food (What? no bratwurst?) and went down the road to my sister's house to eat. She and her family were in town looking for us and we connected via cell phone. They were on their way to the movies and we just wanted to eat and go home. The site of her house was a good midway point for the pup to be unleashed to run free.
WE were all exhausted after our day in town and Chum slept 13 hours. Me too.