I’m Thinking Out Loud about amazing changes we’ve seen in Bandit in four months. Yes, it’s already been four months since we got him.

Thanksgiving is going to be a huge test. Thankfully it’s a small gathering at my house. Just my sister and BIL, their two (grown) kids, and my parents.

I’m pretty sure Bandit has never encountered very elderly people or people who walk with canes and walk funny. I also know that I will be way too busy to pay enough attention to him. I hope he behaves himself so he doesn’t have to spend hours in his crate or downstairs in the office.

We were about to try testing out having him on furniture, but I decided to wait until after Thanksgiving. Because all the furniture will pretty much be in use anyway. He has a dogbed by our couch (as you can see in the photo above), and he’s become very attached to it. He’s been pretty good about going straight to it and not jumping up on the couch (even though I’m sure he wants to).

I don’t want my parents to trip over it, but unless he’s acting up, we’ll probably have it out there for him. And maybe gate him into the kitchen (where there’s another dogbed for him) if it’s too much for him, although I’ll serve in there so eventually he’ll end up back in his crate.

Or coats of many colors
Man, I have a lot of coats. There are coats for walking the dogs. Coats for running. Good coats. Heavy coats. Down coats. Windbreakers. Moto jackets. The list goes on and on. It might actually be the clothing item I own the most of (if we don’t lump all running clothes into one category, of course).

The thing is I actually wear all these coats. I live in an area with four seasons, where temps range from the 90s down to zero. I walk the dogs daily. I run a lot — sometimes even twice a day. I run in the rain and in the snow, sometimes. Every once in a while I get dressed up.

I’m not proud of it; it is what is is.

 

Another epic trip
Do you follow me on Instagram? Then you know we were up to some shennanigans in New York City last weekend:

• Walking around the NYC Marathon expo without actually buying anything
• Running the Dash to the Finish Line 5k on Saturday morning (I blame Darlene)
• Walking for miles and miles in Central Park with my nephew after the race
• Destroying a pastrami on rye at The Pastrami Queen
• Meeting up with Darlene and Karen @ Frenchinspiration to chat about her marathon plans
• Walking around the Christmas Village (and eating there) in Bryant Park 2 nights in a row
• Seeing “Beautiful”
• Going to my parents house to get them some items and go through more papers
• Visiting my parents

It was mostly a good kind of busy, except for the visiting parents things. Things are still very unsettled there.

But the race almost didn’t happen
I thought I had printed out the entry but I couldn’t find it the night before. When I tried to log onto NYRR, it didn’t take either of my emails. To say I was sweating bullets would be a mild understatement.

Finally I figured out I’d managed to register for NYRR with chocolaterunjudy, instead of chocolaterunsjudy.

Phew! Disaster averted.

But wait . . .  there’s more.

I had put out the clothes I intended to wear on the day we left. Only that morning I could’t find the sweater I planned to wear. I must have spent 20 minutes searching for the damn thing. I had another sweater out, but it was heavier, and the weather was warmer than forecast, so I’m glad I didn’t cave and wear that.

I have mounds and mounds of clean laundry in piles waiting to be folded and put away. I’ve just had so little time at home lately. I finally located the sweater at the bottom of a pile of clean running skirts.

I mean seriously, it’s a bright orange sweater, so how could I miss it, right? It was not a good start to the trip but things went up from there, thank goodness.

The great migration is long overdue
That would be moving my spring/summer clothes into the other bedroom, and moving the fall/winter clothes into our closet. It tends to happen slowly, in dribs and dabs as I find I need something appropriate for the season that is in the wrong closet.

I still have an awful lot of summer clothes in the closet of our bedroom, though, and summer is definitely long past.

An odd dream
I woke up in the middle of this dream this morning. I rarely remember my dreams, so I thought I’d get it down here (I’d already posted!).

Mr. Judy and I were moving into an apartment somewhere. Somewhere warm. But it was like some kind of mall, too. And apparently I was signed up for a half that day. I went over to hear more about it: they were talking about crossing rivers and climbing ravines.

Katherine Switzer was there. I had her sign my Run Happy hat, which had other signatures on it (it doesn’t have any signatures on it in real life, by the way); I was kicking myself for not bringing my visor that I have famous runners sign.

It was warm, too, or at least I was dressed in a tank — but not yet actually dressed to run. So instead of thinking oh hell no, I started to run back to the apartment to finish dressings . . . only I couldn’t find it . . . and that’s when I woke up.

No clue what that’s about!

A dog walks into a vet
And that is what the title is about. I had asked the vet that Bandit bit if it was okay to bring him in. Not for an appointment, just to get him used to going to a vet’s office. Surprisingly she said sure. I mean, I know that vets do get bit, but she is also one of two vets that advised us to euthanize Bandit.

I needed to pick up some supplements, so off we went. The vet wasn’t there (maybe a good thing), but he got to meet all the office people and be fed treats by them and the tail was going pretty strong.

We literally returned to the scene of the crime, aka the exam room he bit the vet in. And he got on the scale. Plus I put his muzzle on in the waiting room — probably a good thing, I was just doing it for training purposes, but a big dog came in at that point and sniffed his butt. He seemed unconcerned.

Oddly enough he has begun to be somewhat reactive to certain dogs while on leash recently. More in a “I want to run with you” way than a “I’d like to eat you” way. Lola can already be reactive on leash, but we’ve had her 10 years after all, so she is generally not that hard to get into a sit if she’s being reactive . . . Bandit becomes pretty deaf when there’s something of interest. There’s still a whole lot of training to do there.

Bandit almost escaped . . . again
I have a distinct memory of giving Bandit his jerky through a closed crate door before I left to go vote yesterday. Imagine my surprise when I got home, opened the door (with the garage door still up) and was greeting by Bandit. Who thankfully did not try to escape on me.

Nothing seemed out of place in the house and there were no accidents.

My guess is he actually stayed in the crate, just assuming that the closed door was latched, until I got home. Then he probably jumped on the door and voila! Freedom.

Talk to me. Tell me in the comments:

Are you a coat hoarder like me?

Do you know what you’re having for Thanksgiving (if you’re hosting)? Ugh! I sure don’t, not yet.

How do your furkids react to strange people (or family) in your house?

I’m linking up with Amanda at Running with Spoons for her: