Rod does yoga

The way Rod does yoga is different than everyone else.  First, he must escape the restraints that man has placed on him.  I admit I made this step far too easy.  Lately, Rod has been behaving nicely enough out in the front yard that I let him wander around on his own.  He still has his harness on, and he drags his leash around behind him like a prisoner attached to a ball and chain.  I left the leash on for safety purposes and rationalized in my head that the attached leash would give me enough of a reaction time to stomp on it and stop him if he bolted.  I was so proud of my dog for being able to handle this level of freedom! Look at him lounging so nicely:

Yoga day arrived, marked by the 40-something ladies arriving at my yoga-instructor neighbor’s house with their mats.  About an hour later, I was melting in the front yard, though I was sitting in a shady spot mere feet from where Rod lay blissfully overheating in the sun.  And then he saw them - Rod went from lion-reclining to bolt of lightning in seconds.  Yoga ladies!!  

Since I do not have a picture of this, this drawing done from memory will have to do:

Rod could hardly decide which lady to bark at first, so there was a bit of confusion and juking between them at the beginning.  I don’t know if this was part of his evasion tactic to throw me off but if it was it certainly worked.  His leash was bouncing from pavement to air crazily as he formed a large circle of bark around the poor woman in front.  Behind his magical flying leash was me whisper-screaming his name in order to avoid a bigger scene then we already were.  Once he felt that a sufficient number of circles was made, he moved onto the next lady who was carrying her yoga mat, laughing uncontrollably at this dog and his owner.  His leash was just out of reach, so I kept stomping on the ground trying to catch it under my foot, only to be met with pure pavement each time.  I believe we looked like this:

 

One lady yelled out between gasps of laughter, “He’s having the time of his life!”  And indeed he was.  These ladies were nice enough to stand still and let this scene happen around them as I lunged at Rod’s leash with my various limbs.  After a couple minutes, Rod felt that his work here was done and trotted calmly back into our yard, tail up and head held high.  I apologized and walked away with my tail tucked between my legs.  Pretty common reaction all around.