wild goose chase.

Claire and I went over to my friend Katie's house one day last week so that she could play with Katie's two dogs, Rylee and Holly, while we ate dinner and engaged in some good ol' girl talk. Claire was not in the most playful mood, however, so she pouted by the door for the majority of the evening [it was just one of those days, I guess]. Katie suggested that we take the dogs for a walk, and I was hopeful that Claire would snap out of her bad mood with some time outside.

Part of our walk took us down a pretty steep hill [and yes, it was steep, Katie!]. I was wearing some flats that were awfully cute but were probably not the best for trekking down hills, so when I realized that I was going to have to side-step the whole way, I let Claire off her leash so that I wouldn't sprain my ankle if she started pulling.

I was carefully making my way down the hill, when Claire spotted something in the distance and, of course, took off. I half-heartedly called for her, mainly because I was trying not to fall, and I figured that once I finally made it to the bottom, I could put some more gusto into it. I didn't have to wonder what she was chasing for too long, however, because she circled back towards us in hot pursuit of one very angry Canadian goose. The goose flew towards its flock - which was just a little ways away from me and Katie - and when they all saw Claire running at them, they half waddled and half flew right at us [for the record, it's extremely frightening to have a flock of angry geese flying straight at you]. Though most of the geese made it a safe distance away from Claire in one piece, she was right on the tail of one of them. She was so focused on capturing this prize, that she didn't look where she was going, and she ran into a drainage ditch that was full of stagnant water and - what else? - goose poop. That didn't stop her, though, and so Katie and I watched as she leapt through this mixture of nastiness after the goose.

By this time, I had finally reached the bottom of the hill, and Katie and I were busy running after Claire. [We also ran past a guy who was busy filming the whole thing on his camera]. When we finally caught her, she smelled absolutely awful because she was covered - head to tail - in thick black sludge from the drainage ditch. We somehow managed to get her back to Katie's apartment and dump her in the tub for a good scrubbing, which took a great deal of effort on both our parts.

So, to date, Claire has gone after a chicken, numerous squirrels, a bird, a few rabbits, and now a goose. I can't even imagine what's next.