Good morning!

It's not even 6AM yet, and I've had a busy morning.

Things started normally, with George letting out a gentle howl at 4:58 to announce that it's time to get up. This time of year the birds start chirping around that time each morning, and George usually takes up the song after they get things started.

I turned on the lights, pulled on some clothes, and sat down on the new shoe bench to put on the protective brace for my knee while George warmed up his vocal chords and Nancy rolled on her back, doing some light stretching. I wear that brace for extra protection on dog walks, and as it turned out today would be the first time I really needed it.

I planned to walk around the block, as we've been doing lately. We went up to the corner, and I snapped a photo (above at the top of this post) of George and Nancy standing on the corner before we turned left. Nancy was looking to the left attentively, but she is often studying something off in the distance, and I didn't give it any mind – until a second later, when all hell broke loose.

There was an injured bird in the street, and that's what Nancy had been staring at. Suddenly both dogs were pulling as hard as they could toward the bird, and I was nearly yanked off my feet. I managed to stay upright, but it's slightly downhill in that direction so I had no control, and I found myself running down the sidewalk and across the grass while the dogs accelerated toward the flopping bird. My first time running on the new knee! Definitely not under the safest of circumstances, but it's nice to check off another milestone.

I realized I was out of control and about to fall, and my mind was racing but I had two thoughts: ABOVE ALL DON'T FALL as my surgeon had told me, and also I didn't want to drop the leashes because Nancy can be extremely difficult to get back on-leash. Things were moving quickly, and George lunged to the left of a tree as Nancy lunged to the right of it. I lost control and fell forward, rolling to my left as I went down to protect my new right knee. I clung tightly to the leashes, and the pulling of the dogs slammed my hands and arms into the tree.

I was now laying on the ground slightly left of the tree, dazed and confused, and Nancy was still pulling hard on the leash, which had my left hand pinned against the back of the tree. George had popped out of his collar and was out in the street chewing on the bird.

I couldn't get up with my hand pinned, and Nancy kept pulling hard, jealous of George having all the fun. I managed to twist around and kick her hard with my good leg, and she yelped and back off a second, which gave me the opportunity to free my left hand and clamber to my feet, all without dropping the leashes.

I love the way dogs seem to know and respect when your tone of voice changes to "this is fucking serious," and that's what happened next. I was glad to have Nancy on-leash, but now I needed to get George back, and I snarled at him to come.

To my surprise, George raced right back to me and Nancy with the bird in his mouth. He dropped at my feet, Nancy grabbed it and started crunching, and then George lay down at my feet to let me put his collar back on. Good boy, George!

Next I took stock of my injuries. The new knee was OK, no new pains there – that's the main thing. The good knee was a bit sore, and I was bleeding quite a bit from my left hand (I had lost a cuticle as it ground against the tree bark with Nancy pulling). And then I noticed I was bleeding from both forearms as well, where they had slammed into the side of the tree as I went down.

We went back into the house, and the dogs were very subdued while I cleaned and bandaged my wounds in the upstairs bathroom. And then when I went back downstairs, they stayed upstairs and apparently went back to bed. Very unusual for them, since they usually spend mornings in the parlor with me after our walk. Then spent a full half hour up there alone, and then after I'd made coffee, iced my knee, and wrote up this post, I walked over to the stairs to call them down.

Overall, I'm relieved and grateful: this could have been much worse. I just have a few flesh wounds that should heal up fine, and I didn't injure my new knee. Nancy didn't get away (or I'd probably still be out there trying to get her back), and George was surprisingly good about getting back on-leash.

Coincidentally, my annual checkup with my regular doctor is at 7:45 this morning, so it's time to get ready and leave for that. I had been looking forward to telling my doctor how well my knee surgery recovery is going, but I hadn't anticipated needing to explain all these bandages on my arms and hands!