Walking my Celebrities

When you walk celebrities, you must be very conscientious of your surroundings. You must stay alert at all times and aware of any potential stalkers. You must keep them safe without making them feel suffocated. It's tricky, dangerous, difficult work. It involves answering the same questions over and over again...."What breed are they? How old are they? So they won't get any bigger? Do they race? Are they retired from racing? Can I get a picture with them?" And my little guys would really prefer not to be petted. They like to be admired from a distance. It's all about them, ya' know. Dealing with celebrity egos can be exhausting. My job is to keep them well fed, safe, and entertained. In my case, I have the responsibility and privilege of walking two celebrities, and I feel quite lucky.

Sometimes it's annoying to deal with the general public (GP), so they let me speak for them. I decided we would avoid eye contact and just try to walk quickly to the nearest private location where they wouldn't be hassled. We had to make it past the courthouse, then a long shady walk down a bricked sidewalk.

I'm so grateful when they allow me the honor of choosing the best venue. On this day, I chose Heritage Park.Once we arrived they settled into their rhythm of chasing geese off the dock, running back to me, waiting for the stupid geese to return, then chasing the geese off the dock again. Thrilling.
At some point, the geese stopped caring about the dock and swam away altogether. Artimus and Gollum don't like to swim, so the game ended. They started their sniffing chores...reading all the pee-mail.They put in a full days' work, so standing around for nothing to do got boring.No stupid geese, no chatty squirrels, no poop to eat or roll around in, no turtles to turn over, ....so we started heading back. We took a different route in order to fool the paparazzi (or pupperazzi).

Climbed these stairs.

And more stairs.


Artimus got a little winded.
More stairs.

Found a shady resting spot.Then more stairs.

We made it back home, but I don't think Artimus will forgive and forget for all the stairs. He's giving me that side-of-the-eye look. My celebrities are going to sleep it off.