Beanie and especially Biggles tend to get quite excited in the few minutes before a parkrun, but ever since Strathclyde started having pre-run warmups the excitement level has hit fever pitch. I have to forgo the warmup and keep a significant distance away from the group so that my boy’s baying doesn’t drown out any announcements, and this in turn frustrates him. This Saturday he became so frustrated that he managed to back out of his harness and do a runner!
It caught me completely by surprise; I expect Beanie to do that sort of thing because she’s always wiggling into and out of things, but the Bigglet? He’s not normally much into wiggling. This Saturday though he wiggled like Houdini in a straitjacket and won his freedom. He bolted first towards Susan & Beanie who were doing the warmup.
Susan and Beanie during the warmup, mere seconds before my boy’s escape
I could see the surprise and shock on Susan’s face as she spotted him – she said afterwards that she was thinking “hey, that dog looks just like Biggles. Oh c&*p it is Biggles!” The errant Biggly Boy did a quick flyby of his Mum and sister then veered off towards the start line. I had visions of his little white bottom disappearing into the freezing fog never to be seen again, or at least not for a few hours, and I called him. I had no expectation that it would work, but I had to try something ‘cos I certainly can’t run fast enough to catch the little bugger!
Amazingly my little boy did a U-turn as soon as he heard me and came running back. I figured he wasn’t going to stop when he reached me so I readied myself to catch him, but he came to a halt right by me and rolled straight onto his side. I must stress at this point that I’ve never practiced the Caesar Millan submission thing with him, but I guess he picked up on the stress in my voice and decided to go directly into the “naughty position” he’d seen on TV to save time! There was barely a minute left before the run but Biggles offered no struggle as I got him back into his harness and we made it to our customary starting position at the rear of the group in the nick of time.
The harness goes on. Again.
After that little hiccup, everything went smoothly. Susan and Beanie managed a terrific personal best despite the slippery ice while me and little Steve McQueen ran hard and came very close to equaling our current PB. I felt that was a good result for Team McQueen given that I’d spent most of the run on grass and gravel to avoid ending up on my arse.
Those last few yards were torture, but we managed to finish just ahead of Ally Rob and her handsome Dalmation Harvey
Susan and Beanie charge for the finish line!
Some of Saturday’s canicrossers after the run
A big “thank you” is due to Mike Ward at Busby Video for giving his permission to use these photos. You’ll find the full set of photos from the event here.
