It seemed it would never happen, but spring is finally coming in all its muddy glory. The daffodils are coming up, the cardinals are singing their breeding territory songs, I saw a robin, and the park is packed with people and dogs.

I love the warm weather and all the activity, though I must admit I also love the quiet of the park in winter, when there is just a hard-core group of joggers and dog walkers. But from now til school starts back, on every decent day we will share it with dogs and kids in strollers, track teams and the ROTC practicing their drills, retirees out for strolls and families on picnics.

After a week or more of being stuck walking through the neighborhood because of melting snow and rain, we finally braved the park today. Right off the bat there was a group of dogs playing, several of which we never saw. I let Maddie loose because she does not always greet well on-leash but is fine when she has some more space. I kept a close eye on a huge Rottie who seemed to be in pretty high prey drive; he started to run after Maddie in herding mode, but she quickly turned the tables and herded HIM back in the other direction. Nothing like seeing 27 pounds of fluff turn off 100 pounds of muscle! Maddie is pretty submissive but when she plays she does like to tell the other dogs where to go.

We headed out of there pretty quickly, though, because it was sloppy and the dogs were getting filthy. On our walk we ran into several tiny kids who got excited about the dogs. WIth the older kids I just let them go, but with toddlers I always crouch down and hold the dogs and coo to them so I can make sure nothing happens. One little girl who looked like she only recently learned to walk toddled right up to our two. She gave Jack a big kiss on the nose, and then she kept trying to pet his mouth. I think she still has some things to learn, but she was tiny! Jack gave a big yawn and turned his head, so I figured he wasn't too happy about it. He's always great with kids, but there's a limit to what they should have to tolerate. We thanked them for stopping and headed off.

Pretty soon the grass will start greening up and the mud will disappear. Thank goodness. This winter was a long one, and it's so nice to be able to get back out and about again. Hikes and dog-swimming and evenings on the deck are right around the corner....