Bizzy Unleashed

My friend Kathy's visit was awesome last week.  We cruised all over the Bay Area with Bizzy in the back seat enjoying the ride. It all culminated on Friday with a trip to the place I now consider Doggie Heaven - Fort Funston. Fort Funston is in San Francisco and was once an old military installation. It has now been converted to a park which allows dogs to be completely off leash throughout.  It includes hiking trails, fields, green grasses and a beautiful beach and overlook. 

Our morning started with the drive up to Fort Funston - a short 35 minutes from Campbell but a world of difference in terms of climate.  We went from hot and dry to foggy and cool which was lovely.  When we arrived the first thing I saw was dogs - lots of them. And all off leash.

Now the thing to know is that Bizz is a bit of a runner. He runs around in dog parks and the fenced in yard but I've never taken him off leash.  He has three times escaped from the yard/house. The first time through a hole in our fence which has since been patched. I discovered he was gone and found him fairly quickly - two blocks away attempting to break into a yard where several dogs were fenced in.  He did come back when I called. The second time he made it to the end of the block but he saw I was not following when he looked back (I was stopping traffic to try to keep him from getting hit if he ran into the street) and he came back to me when I called. The third time he ran around my car three times and I was able to catch him on the third pass.  So my fear has always been if he's off leash he'll take off and be completely gone.  Well Fort Funston was going to be my experiment - would he take off at a mad run never to return?  I was counting on getting him pretty far in and a lot of other people to help catch him with me if he didn't come back.

We walked in with Bizz on leash. The park is lovely and we went quite a ways in before I took a breathe and released Bizz from his leash.

 

He was terrific. He stayed within 20-30 yards of us the entire time.  The training we've done the last 4 months paid off. He would check over his shoulder to see where I was (if I was following him) and would wait if he was too far ahead. He came very time he was called. And most hilariously he would periodically run up to strange dogs and bark then come running back to stand between my legs.  Kathy said it was obvious he was brave as long as he had me to protect him. 

 

 

The best part for me was how happy Bizz was off leash. He could run as much as he wanted and it was amazing how happy he was.  Here are some photos - thanks to Kathy and her camera for the excellent shots.

 

 

 

We had a great time on the path, the beach, and all parts of the park. We will be going back at least once a month so Bizz can be unleashed and enjoy.  We followed our outing with a visit to Half Moon Bay then came home and crashed with a very tired little dog spending the night sound asleep.