Atlanta Dog Jog

Hello, everyone! My name is Nikki and I'm guest pawsting here today!! :)

Last year, my human and I ran the Atlanta Dog Jog in Piedmont Park, and my first 5k race EVER! You see, my human runs this races all the time and frankly, as much as I love her, I think she's a little crazy. I much rather prefer taking naps and chowing down on food. Like any dog, I enjoy my time outside, but long walks were never for me. My long cold-weather coat makes Hotlanta unbearable for me, so I'd much rather curl up on my human's bed in the nice air conditioning.

I used to be a very lazy puppy and did not like walking around the block too much. Then my human and I moved to a place with a very nice lake and many ducks! So we started walking around it each night and taking longer and longer walks. My human even noticed that I was trotting the whole time! Before long, she started talking about this Dog Jog and it made my tail wag with excitement! Me, running with my runner human?!? Why, that's pawsatively awesome!

A few months ago, I went out to run with my human. She's faster than me, so I just strolled and took in the sights and smells with her boyfriend and my buddy, Chris Davis. I stopped many times during our walk and said I couldn't go further, but he gave me pep talks along the way to keep me going. I hear he gives humans the same thing during their races.

In the days leading up to the race, my human gave me a haircut so I'd be cool and look cool during the run. I love my human's hair cuts! She says they look funny, but I love prancing around to show them off. :P

When we got to the park, it was full of news sights and smells! I loved it as I had never been there before!! I wanted to check out everything and greet everybody! But then things started to get ruff when I wanted to go back home and my human said no. I was a bit nervous and confused. A bunch of dogs lined up with their humans and they took off running!

Um...pardon me, but what are we doing? Oh! That was the short race?? Then why weren't we with them? Oh no...we are running the longer race!!! A couple of little dogs went by in a carriage pushed by their human. I looked to mine, "why don't we have one of those?".

So then our group lined up with our humans and we took off running! My human did a good job of keeping up with me and would slow down to walk with me when I was getting tired and needed a rest. She'd stop underneath trees so we could catch our breath and give me some water. Some Great Danes passed us and I looked to her to ask if we could ride them.

We ran along and across the field, we saw the pacing car! It stayed in the back and made sure no racers were behind it. My human told me it was coming and we needed to hurry up, but I wondered why we couldn't ride that.

Then we started hearing music and things looked familiar! My human said "Look, Nikki, we are at the end of the race! You always need to run to the finish, so let's run again!!". Ok, silly human, I will run again... just as long as this is the end of the race! So we ran... and ran some more... and some more... and I started getting further and further behind my human. All of the tents and music were still behind us and the music was fading! My human stopped and looked confused - it wasn't the end of the race at all! We had one more loop to go.

She giggled and apologized, but I don't think she was that sorry. We stopped to walk for a bit and then ran when we actually saw the finish line for real.

I was a tired but happy puppy at the finish. Everyone congratulated me and they gave me a blue bandanna for finishing! I also got lots of treats and water. Then we loaded up in the car and I slept for the rest of the day at home. Life is ruff for a running puppy! ;)