My running partners are my dogs - Border Collies Kandoo, Brody, and Will. There's a few others that share our home, but only the boys enjoy running. Kandoo and Will are both blind and deaf, the result of merle-to-merle breeding often known as 'double merles' or 'lethal whites'. Brody is unilaterally deaf but you'd never know it - unless he can not see where you are and attempts to do a recall, in the opposite direction. (You need two ears to tell where sound comes from).
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| 6 year old Kandoo in 2010 at a 5k. |
Kandoo is a running machine - I honestly think he could trot along for hours without any conditioning. He's best for short runs though, in order to 'see' where I'm at he bumps against me leg, often hard enough to trip me. When I run with Kandoo I know I"ll have a bruise on my knee the next day. He loves it though, and I love him, so we make it work.
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| Running buddies Brody and Will. They're only buddies when they run, in real life they hate each other. |
Brody is my main runner, 5 miles is nothing to him but killer to me! His natural gait is faster than mine especially when we first start out, and he's always ready for a run. He's a great motivator. White Dog is slower than I, which is really saying something. He looks forward to walk breaks, gets me convinced he's had enough and pleads me to carry his furry butt home, which, for the record, I DO NOT. But as soon as we're home and he's off lead, he runs around the yard like a mad man. Go figure.
