Dog Sitting

I don't know if I mentioned this or not but we are dog sitting again, although, it sounds like it's going to be for 5 months so I don't know if that's considered dog sitting or getting a dog. Our daughter, who is in college and works a part time job, got a chance at a paid internship on her off days from school. She was thinking about turning it down because the dog would be home alone all the time so we offered to take him in because it was a good opportunity for her.

We've watched him a few times. Sometimes for a weekend, sometimes a week or more so he's used to the house. We think he loves it here for 2 main reasons. We have a good sized fenced in back yard (our daughter has an apartment) and there is almost always someone home (he doesn't like being left alone). We watched him for a couple of weeks at Christmas and the only time he had to go to his kennel was on Christmas day for a few hours.

He kept coming in from outside yesterday and he would be filthy. It looked like dirt all over his feet and nose and sometimes on his fur. We figured he must be digging somewhere so Cheri watched him for a bit and he wasn't digging, or at least we don't think he was, but it was where he was going. He was jumping in the firepit so it wasn't dirt we were washing off, it was ash. Like I said, he's been here a number of times and had never gotten in it but apparently this time he decided he was going to. We grabbed a piece of wood that was in the garage when we moved in and laid it over the pit to keep him out.

He also likes to sleep between us in bed so what we had to learn to do last time he was here is we both sleep with separate quilts because when we use one, he plops down in the middle and it pulls up on the sides so we end up with body parts sticking out which isn't good because we turn the heat down at night and those body parts get chilly.

Day 24, Portage, IN (66 miles)

I had a good day at work yesterday so I ended up with over 10,000 steps which equals out to a little more than 5.1 miles. It got me all the way to portage but once again, there isn't really anything around, unless you count the train tracks from the South Shore that travels from South Bend to Chicago. That's all it is though, is the tracks. I did however, see this while I was plotting the route.

What the hell is that? I Googled it and apparently it's listed as one of the scariest haunted place in Indiana. The write-ups I see about it make it seem really scary but they also sound like they were written to be scary so I don't know if it's real or not.