Free Running Adventures with Boo and Pence

Hey everyone! Today’s newsletter was slightly delayed from the normal morning posting, but for good reason!

Many of our friends, family, and fellow Uglydogs have heard about my cousin’s tragic accident last June when he was hit by a vehicle while riding his bike. He has gone through several months of intense therapy and has made a miraculous recovery.

Last night, my cousin was given the True Hero Award by Peyton Manning at the Celebration of Caring Gala! I will spare everyone the details, but it was an amazing night for him and our entire family, so we were busy all day yesterday with that. If you’re interested in hearing more about it, check out my Twitter thread here.

Since the dog’s saw Riley and I getting all dressed up last night, they thought they should partake as well. Aren’t they adorable?

As for today’s actual update, we’re talking about free running Boo and Pence! It’s been in the 60s and 70s this week, so it was too warm for the dogs to pull. It’s like the weather decided to skip right over the ideal running temps…

So, we decided to take them to my dad’s house to free run instead.

The last time we took the dogs free running, you may recall that Pence was spooked by a snow plow and ran off. We hadn’t free run the dogs since that day, so we weren’t sure how things would go.

I (Riley) hadn’t free run with Pence out at Hannah’s dad’s before, so I was a bit more nervous. It’s different than when we’ve let her run at the baseball diamond that is fenced in (even though she apparently knows how to get out, if you read the previous newsletter linked above). Yes, her dad’s house is out in the country, but that could mean if she decides to run off, she could keep going and going for miles on end.

While I want to think we’ve gained her trust, she still has some of the skittish tendencies that could mean she would run at a moments notice. I know it’s more of an irrational fear because she’s been very good about recall besides that one time, but it’s still “scary” every time she trots off away from us.

We hopped in the car with Boo and Pence and went to my dad’s house. When we arrived, Boo jumped out of the car and immediately started exploring. We had Pence on a leash initially, not sure if she would be spooked and run off, or explore like Boo.

Hannah’s dad had his old truck running, which is pretty loud and it definitely put Pence on edge.

Once the truck was turned off, she noticeably calmed down. So we went inside to drop our stuff off before taking them out back to run.

When we got to the back yard, we let Pence off her leash and the two proceeded into zoomies, chasing each other in circles around the yard. They sometimes show glimpses of wanting to do this in our back yard, but they probably get too distracted with wanting to go to the bathroom and give up. But not today. They really ran and it was awesome to watch.

Pence gets so excited when she gets to run, whether on lead or free like this. Her smile is so big and contagious. The fact that she’s that full of energy and excitement at her age is awesome, and something we aren’t used to with older dogs we’ve had before.

Pence did get a little adventurous at times, acting like she was going to run off into the neighbors yard, the big field or up into the front by the road. However, she did amazing with her recalls! Within one or two “come” commands, she turned her happy butt back around and trotted towards us, smiling again, proud of how good she was being.

This was a big sigh of relief.

They had a blast, sniffing all the new smells, chasing each other around, getting all the pets. Pence made friends with my dad pretty quickly again, while Boo still wanted nothing to do with him lol. Even outside, Boo was hesitant to go up to him.

He’s so weird.

But Pence was the opposite. She hesitated at first, but once she got one butt scritch, she started leaning into him for more.

Once it was time to go inside, Boo knew exactly what to do. He was back on his favorite couch in no time. Pence was a little nervous and wouldn’t calm down. She probably thought she was going to be left at a new place again. But that’s how Boo was for a long time too.

It just takes some time for them to get adjusted to new places and realize that not every new place is so bad and scary. After 10-15 minutes, Pence finally started to relax and laid down on the couch with Riley while he edited the YouTube video of her and Boo running (check it out below!)

So while we didn’t necessarily want the temperatures to warm up this much yet, we made the best of it and had a great afternoon with the dogs. Being able to free run with them and build more trust with Pence is always just as important as training.

What will we get into next week? Stay tuned!

[VIDEO] Highlights from free running with Boo and Pence

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