Terv Tales: January 2012

Over Christmas break, Apollo and I went to Newfoundland, as my flatmates decided (quite reasonably) that I should not stay in Halifax by myself (well, with only Apollo). I rented a car, booked the ferry crossing, and off we went. Unfortunately there are no pictures of that first part of the trip… We left Halifax on the afternoon of the 23rd, and arrived in St. John's in the early evening of the 24th.

Whilst we were in St. John's we visited the dog park at Quidi Vidi four times, but unfortunately there are no pictures from there either. The first three times there were anywhere from five to 15 or so dogs there. Apollo quickly decided his favourite thing to do was to get other dogs to chase him, and he had a terrific time. The fourth day we were not so lucky. The only two dogs there when we arrived were a Rhodesian Ridgeback around his age (massive!) and an older lab. The two of them were playfighting when we arrived, but the lady with the lab left almost right after we arrived. The Rhodesian then decided to pay attention to Apollo — by biting at his ears and neck. Apollo has been very gentle with every dog I've seen him with, preferring to run and chase and be chased. I decided to leave immediately. Had there been other dogs there it might have been different, but as it was I didn't feel as if the other dog (or owner, who didn't see the problem) should have been there.

Anyway, for New Year's we went back to the west coast of the island, to Stephenville. There we spent New Year's itself at a cabin in the woods. The snow was belly deep on Apollo, and since we were far from roads with traffic, people, and most other things, he was off leash the whole time. When we first arrived he spent around an hour racing up and down the path, "helping" as we unloaded the cars and got everything inside. He stayed close, and kept coming back to check that I was still following. He also came back when I called!