An Urban Hike in Nashville

Mason and I took four dogs – Meadow, Adriana, and our foster’s Dawn and Tony – for an urban hike through Nashville yesterday morning as part of their socialization training. The six of us started at the dog park on the hilltop in Centennial Park, walked down Broadway, passing the Ryman Auditorium and the already-open honky-tonks. Then we strolled along Second Avenue and the Cumberland River, weaving towards the new Convention Center. On the way back, we trekked 21st Avenue to Vanderbilt University, cut across the quad, and ended up on West End near Centennial Park again. We walked a total of five miles.

Dawn – a dog that was feral three months ago – did fantastic. It was a beautiful morning, the first sunny day of spring, and there were people everywhere. We passed a boatload of other dogs, runners, bikers, bums, buses, cars, golf carts, strollers, musicians, students, tourists, horses, a blaring fire truck, and even an ambulance. Her biggest issue was manhole covers, which she refused to walk over. After she tried to jump onto a busy street to avoid one, I stubbornly made her stand on it so that she realized it wouldn’t hurt her. After that, she walked on a few but never consistently.

The real star was Tony a.k.a T-bone. That little lady’s man broke 100 hearts in two hours. From one end of Nashville to the other we had flocks, and I mean flocks of women – young, old, and in-between – that stopped us and asked to meet Tony. That little four-month-old player has never met a stranger, and he kissed everybody and anybody