My Oh My What A Downpour!

I woke up with that panicked feeling!  You know that feeling where something startles you awake and you instantly hit the panic button until you fully come out of your sleepy fog?  I'm sure everyone reading this can relate.  Why the panicked feeling? We woke up to one of the loudest thunderstorms little Piper has had to endure.  By the way Pipe....Welcome to Texas!  Oh wait she was born in Big D.  Well, still it was a shocking burst of sounds her little ears suffered through.  As soon as I heard the loud thunder booming above us my immediate thought was...."where are our vehicles?"  Worrying about the vehicles was what startled me awake.  This thunderstorm thankfully produced no hail or tornado threat. The vehicles were in the garage so no fear of hail damage. Whew!

But try to tell Piper there was no need to worry.  Actually she did pretty well.  I opened the blinds closest to the couch and she sat on the edge of the couch watching it all.  She wasn't brave enough to sit right next to the window.  She needed a safe distance between her and the action.  Since we're on the top floor a majorly loud thunderstorm seems to rock us.  I noticed she looked to her brothers a lot. Likely seeing if they seemed worried or nervous.  She was a little nervy but I don't believe to the level she would've been if she didn't have two brothers.

It's always interesting having a puppy or a kitty in the household.  It takes a lot to teach them what you expect out of them. However, let me say it is without a doubt easier when you have older pets in the house as well. Following their lead has made my life easier as we train Piper.  As I've mentioned before, Cody is quite the disciplinarian. Simon learned from Cody too.  There was just the right amount of time between getting Cody then getting Simon.  A foundation had already been laid down for Cody, Simon just had to follow along.  I remember the first time I introduced Simon to the puppy litter box. I was a single female at the time I got the boys so going out in the middle of the night for potty breaks was not going to happen, not a safe idea in my opinion. I decided to train Cody to a little box first.  It worked great!  When I brought Simon home for the first time I sat him down in the litter box.  He immediately thought it was a sand box to play in.  He used his paws to bat the sand back and forth while he playfully spun around. Cody looked on with the most judging look on his face a dog could possibly muster up. That was the point when I knew Cody was going to be a big help showing Simon the ropes. Now years later he's showing Piper the ropes.

Now back to the real subject of this post after that slight detour....as I mentioned the rain greeted us this morning when we woke up. I decided to delay walking the boys for a bit. Sure that it would get better soon.  Instead it got worse and then even worse.  Boy did I learn a lesson.  Just go when you have the chance because it might not get any better.  I'm not sure if we had left as soon as we got up this morning to get the long walk in if we could've completed it before the heavy rain started but it would have been close.  I got antsy to get the long walk of the day in and finally when I noticed it had lessened significantly I leashed up the boys for the journey.  Out the door we went way later than usual. As we started out I thought it looked great off in the distance. I was confident the light sprinkles would soon cease as we continued on our path.  As we walked along the lake we live by I couldn't believe how high the lake had risen.  Crazy!  So much rain fell in such a short amount of time the lake was almost filled to capacity.  The street we walk down had a stalled car stuck in the flooded middle section.  What few cars we did see out were progressing SLOWLY through the flooded street. I quickly thought to myself, "good thing we have a Pathfinder". Cars were not going through the water easily at all.  As we approached the point of no return on our route the skies opened up again and it started to pour.  I mean pour!!!!! I think that is the worst downpour of rain I have ever been caught in with the boys.  There was so much rain coming at us that my rain protection I had on quickly became nearly useless.  I kept glancing up to see if I happened to spot my husband in the Pathfinder coming to rescue his wife and pugs along the route. No such luck! We were getting so pelted with rain I finally decided we had to get this over with.  Time to run boys!  We jogged a good amount of the morning "walk".  It was a walk for awhile then jog for awhile type of journey. Cody was a bit harder to convince that jogging was a good idea. Simon took off.  It was kind of funny jogging with Simon. Cody was lagging behind us.  But Simon would have a burst of speed, his turbo jets would fire, then some how he would let off his turbo speed and he was no longer leading but instead keeping exact pace with his mommie. Then next thing I knew he hit the turbo again and was back in the lead just to lose the lead and be right in tune with me.  Funny and cute!  Cody remained as the caboose the entire time. LOL!

I love the rain!  I just don't love the rain when the boys need to be walked. I wish in a lot of ways I could get up on a rain soaked morning and simply skip the walk(truth be told the boys probably wish I could just skip the walk too)....but I CAN'T DO THAT!  It's not in me. Blame my DNA! Blame the fact that I have that "unable to relax" Peterson blood running through my veins! Blame the fact that I'm crazy or a bit OCD! Blame whatever! One thing is for sure this pug mommie will do whatever she can to make sure our pugs get the exercise they need no matter the weather conditions. Here's the other OCD thing about me....I have to get the long walk completed during the morning hours.  It drives me crazy until that long morning walk is done. I wish too I could simply tell myself to delay the walk, simply move it to the afternoon hours, especially when rain hits on the weekend. But I can't do that either!  I'm crazy!  Or maybe I'm simply too schedule oriented.  That I can blame on my mom!  Hee-hee!  I was certainly raised by a super schedule oriented woman so I come by it honestly. 

Wow oh wow....Man, what a downpour we endured! Again I say, welcome to living in Texas Piper. Yet another downpour that wasn't exactly predicted!