Out of the Woods (for a while...)

Today Daryll and I thought that it would be a lovely day to take the pups out on a hike through the canyon behind our house. We set out on our journey with high hopes and a slight air of caution. We decided to keep the dogs on the leash today, despite the fact that they usually love to run ahead of us on the trail. Approximately halfway through the walk, just as we had decided to turn back toward home, my precautionary decision proved to be a beneficial one. Low and behold, no more than 7 inches from Lulu's cute little wrinkly face was a sunning rattler. I pulled Lulu back and said "SNAKE!" and Daryll said "where?" and pulled Ella back toward him. I quickly pointed it out and assessed that the snake was laying in a non-threatening position, and also that there was no way I was walking past it. We swept the dogs up in our arms and looked for a different route, but our path was blocked on both sides by low lying tree braches and a ravine. We had to press onward, but the longer we contemplated, the greater I insisted that I couldn't walk past him. We finally reached our conclusion...we would run past him with the dogs in our arms. Daryll went first with great success. The snake hadn't so much as batted an eye at Daryll's passing. Summoning all of the courage within me, I went next...sprinting as far right as possible and clear past the snake. We carried the dogs until we reached the first street opening and took the out of the way surface streets the rest of the way home. Crisis averted. But we're not planning on taking the dogs out there again until winter. :-)