first time back at the reservoir
the weston reservoir, located on ash street is a 2.75 trail walk around a glorious body of water. “the boys” love walking the reservoir – it’s certainly their most favorite place on earth.
prior to sullivan’s terrible summer, we would go to the reservoir every weekend. sully would sprint three quarters of the trail, dart in and out from the natural woods, play with other dogs, drink from the natural streams and bask in the gloriousness that is the pasturale scape.
needless to say, we were unable to bring sully to the reservoir this summer as his front leg lameness was too debilitating.
on sunday, october 21, a gorgeous fall day in new england, we ventured to the reservoir to see if sullivan might have enough stamina to go just 1/10 of the way around.
he did amazingly well. not wanting to push him too far, we stopped 1/4 of the way in and walked back. sully walked .5 miles.
on tuesday, october 23rd i took sullivan to the reservoir again. he whimpered the second we turned onto ash street, and was so excited to get out of the car to run! we started walking, walked some more, and before i knew it we were nearly 2/3 of the way around. i panicked and thought – what if he can’t make it all the way around? he ran the whole 2.75 mile reservoir, played with dogs, romped in the streams, and explored off trail as he used to before going lame.
we returned to the reservoir twice more during the same week, only this time with young brown. the two played beautifully and had a great time!!! sullivan completed the 2.5 mile romp on back to back days (thursday and friday) which showed great stamina. sure, sullivan is tired after his long 2.5 mile jaunt rests a good portion of the day – his heart is full and he is so happy to be doing something he hasn’t been able to do in months!
sullivan has been a walking testimony of courage to the fellow reservoir walkers. some people stare and once you pass them you hear, “did you see – that dog had three legs”. some don’t even notice because of sully’s ability to keep up, run ahead and play with the other dogs. some pause and tenderly ask what happened and say “wow — this dog is such an inspiration. really makes you think about personal limits and what you can really accomplish.” and others shout “you’re amazing… what an inspiration…you’re an unbelievable dog…i never thought dogs could do that on three legs.” sullivan’s courage and bravery has touched the hearts of hundreds of reservoir walkers…
perhaps my favorite moment came during a rather unfortunate, annoying discourse. one passer by said: “oh my – how dare you bring him here with stitches?” i responded: his stitches have been out for a week and his incision is 100% healed. “ew – he is shaved and his hair hasn’t grown in.” i responded: he had surgery three weeks ago and his fur won’t totally grow back for many months. there was then a pregnant pause as she gave sully another once over. in that moment, he heard the chains of a dog coming up the hill and sully took off at top speed, darting over tree roots in a mad dash to see who was coming. the woman looked at me, paused and said, “i guess he showed me”. WAY TO GO SULLY!!!!
I remember this day. You shot out of the car like a missile. You never missed a beat. You human friends were more nervous than you were.