Crazy Dog Park Lady

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I guess I just don’t really have much of interest to say or share as of late. Life has been pretty routine and mundane...work, dog park, school, sleep.
Matt worked last weekend, so we didn’t really do much of note. We did manage to watch the movie “Marley and Me” Saturday morning. I don’t think I’ve ever cried so much in a movie before! Just a warning to dog/animal lovers: it is a great movie, but evokes some strong emotions!
Last week, I took the dogs to the dog park in between snow storms. One day, I had just started walking our normal trail when this woman started following me and chatting about her beagle (that died 20 years ago) that had a liver problem. Usually, I don’t mind dog talk at the dog park. But this lady was strange…she was wandering back and forth across the trail and I wasn’t sure how long she was going to follow me. (Usually people just stop for a brief exchange of greetings or questions/comments about each other’s dogs). Another weird thing was that the strange woman’s dog would look at her and run away when she called it.
After a while, the lady found a new stranger to converse with and she started in the opposite direction I was going. But her dog started following P&P and I as we continued to walk. We got a pretty good distance down the trail and the lady didn’t seem to care that her dog was so far away. She wasn't even trying to call it. The dog was really starting to distract Perdi from following her commands and I didn’t want it following me all the way across the park so I stopped and waited for a guy who was coming up the trail to help me.
I told him what happened and he leashed the dog and walked it to the lady. I went with him to make sure the dog got to the right person. The strange lady was so grateful to us for bringing her the dog and she started telling us a story about 50 tamales she had left at a store once...it was completely random! I think she was trying to convey that there are honest people on this earth. But I was wondering how she ever rounded up her dog on her previous trips here if it would rather follow strangers than go near her, or why she would even let the dog off leash if that was the case. Even as I tell this story, I think of how strange and random it is. Honestly, I kind of felt bad for the dog, who was so hesitant to return to its master. I wondered if the lady needed any kind of help, but she seemed happy just talking to the people in the park. The impression I got was that rounding up her dog was the most helpful thing I could have done.
Obviously, I meet a lot of people at the park and also observe a lot, which is part of the reason I enjoy going. I guess it’s not only good socialization for my dogs but for me as well, especially since Matt is not around in the evening. In fact, Pongo and Perdi ran into a "friend" from Perdi's puppy class tonight. They ran and played with Bella, a very active puggle, for whom I should give credit to the fact that both of my dogs are sleeping soundly on the couches tonight.
Wow, I really seem to get off track when it comes to the dogs and dog park.
I should really mention how thankful I am for all of the cards, gifts and phone calls I received on my birthday! Matt even set up a whole treasure hunt for me when I got home from work. I had to search for all of my gifts based on clues. It was so fun! (Hint hint for all you guys (or gals) out there who want to do something special for significant other on their birthday!) Some of the folks at work gave me a hard time for having a birthday on April Fool's Day. But I say it is a very fitting birthday for my sense of humor. I didn't play any jokes on anyone, although I thought about telling my boss that the project I was working on had a fatal flaw and needed to be re-started from scratch. (It was due two days later and I had been working on it for weeks!) I decided, for the sake of my job, that I had better not go through with that one even though my boss himself caught a couple people in some April Fool's fun.
I think I am going to end the post here. I have an especially bad headache today. I hope it goes away by tomorrow because it is really hard to see stereo (3D) with an pounding headache!