Thanksgiving 5k & My Miracle Mutt

The past two years my family does the Thanksgiving 5k, Scott usually goes plays football or soccer and me, my parents, brother, and sister run the 5k. This year was special though, my 7 month puppy Rush ran his first 5k (3.2 miles)!!! He did awesome!! We had trained for about a month, which was hard because I didn't want to take him too far since he was still growing.

Before the race!

Rush has been known to be VERY shy, when it comes to strangers he doesn't want none of that. So when we got there every little kid pointed him out and wanted to pet him. This little 7 year old girl came up to me before and asked me if she could pet him, I said yes and gave her a treat. It took a while but he accepted it and hid behind me again. He got a little bit more comfortable and automatically started shaking all the little kids hands around him, they thought it was so cool and told their parents! We started the run and it took a while for Rush to get used to the pace we were going, we ran with my mother and Storm (blue tick hound mix) so Rush would have motivation to keep going. We were about .30 into the race when Rush just STOPS in the middle of the road and takes a huge juicy dump. Now if you have ever ran a race you know that at the beginning it gets pretty crowded for the first mile or so. So when Rush pooped EVERYONE saw it and EVERYONE pointed it out. I luckily had a baggy and picked it up and ran with it for a mile. By mile 2.5 Rush was starting to slow down, the only thing keeping him going is not wanting my mom and Stormy to get out of his sight. I was starting to almost drag him along until we had about .3 left, he got all this energy and just sprinted with me to the finish line! He had finished his first 5k!!

Showing his medal off

Hopefully within the next year or so I can train him up to a 10k-1/2 marathon. It will take a LOT of work for him, he's not your typical athlete when it comes to running. Though he has me slow down so I don't continue hurting my joints for pushing too hard. My sister Kristy runs with her two little doggies - Rufus & Marlene.

That weekend we got to take some pictures of our contest winner of "My Miracle Mutt". They were such an incredibly family and I loved taking their pictures! 

Fox & his Family

It was probably my favorite photo shoot I've ever done, their dog was gorgeous and the relationship with the JulieLynn and Fox was remarkable! 

FOX