A Walk in Vallejo

My husband, Chopper and I went for a walk around downtown Vallejo today. I really needed the exercise since I sit all day at work so I wore my pedometer - hoping to walk 10,000 steps. Chopper seems to get enough exercise doing puppy zoomies around the back yard but it's nice for him to get out and see the world.

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We first walked to the Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church for the annual Greek Festival/church fundraiser. At last year's festival, the monks from the Monastery of St. Johns were selling honey from their apiary in Marin County. We bought a small jar, not realizing how quickly we would use it up. Very tasty stuff. When we got to the church, we discovered the local paper had the dates wrong and the festival is next weekend. Oh well, a good excuse for a walk to the church next weekend.

We walked down Alabama Street to the waterfront giving Chopper lots of opportunities to sniff and mark along the way.

At the waterfront on the Napa River, we looked at the boats in the Yacht harbor and were surprised to see a sea lion crusing around the docks. I wondered if perhaps the sea lions might branch out from Pier 39 in SF and take over a dock or two in Vallejo. Now that would be something to see. I watched Chopper to see if might be interested in the sea lion since they are both thought to be descendants of a bear-like land animal that returned to the sea 30 million years ago. But Chopper seemed more interested in sniffing and marking than in his distant cousin cruising past in the water.

There were a lot of fisher people along the waterfront. We saw someone reel in an undersized striper and release it back into the Napa River.

Chopper still has some issues when we pass houses with barking dogs but he no longer exhibits the aggression that he did a year ago. He tends to strain at the leash and whine but is good about returning to me as soon as I stop walking. He's learned the only way to go forward is when he's not pulling on the leash. During an encounter with a barking dog, when he's excited and whining and running in circles, I can tell him to sit and he'll obey. Then he gets a piece of cheese. Over time, I hope he'll come to understand that passing a barking dog behind a fence or in a house is no big deal. Each time it happens, I'll ask him to sit or lie down, he'll get a treat, and then we'll continue on.

We passed a man with a small dog on the leash and except for running around and pulling on the leash a little too much, Chopper was quite good with the other dog and with the man. A year ago, I would have been afraid to allow him to meet up with another dog.

We walked through a local park and watched a little bit of the Little League game, Bob commenting on the difference between the rules used when he was a kid and what they were doing in the game. I gather stealing bases wasn't allowed back when he was a kid.

As we got near home, it was nice to see some houses in our neighborhood getting a face lift here and there - including our own. We had a new driveway put in this week and it looks great! No more waist-high weeds growing in the driveway in the springtime and no more kitty land mines. Chopper wanted to christen it but I pulled him away before he could do so. I'd like to keep the driveway pristine for at least a week or two.

And I did manage to walk just about 10,000 steps.