Rollerblading

One of my favorite pass times is rollerblading. When I was younger, I was really into the Disney Channel Movie Brink! The characters in the movie were soul skaters and skated for fun. They would do tricks, go down ramps, and jump stairs, they were living their best life, and I was all about it. So that is what I did, now… I skate around and go down some hills and jump the curb. One of my favorite things is I now skate with my little ghoul, Belle. She loves going out and skating with me, but only because she gets a treat after so many blocks (it’s her motivation). When she is done, I have a bag for her to go in to get warm and take a break.

When she is out skating with me, I skate; I don’t do anything fancy or dangerous because she is with me, and her safety and comfort come before anything. When I started taking her to skate, I made sure she could sniff away at the skates, watch them move and, of course, eat treats off of them so she would know it wasn’t a scary thing. I wanted to take things slow because she is an old lady and gets nervous about change. When she was comfortable around them, I put them on next to her, and we gradually moved to go straight, and now we can skate everywhere. She trusts me, and I trust her.

She walks perfectly beside me while I skate, and if you are worried about falling well, we have complete trust and confidence in one another. I fell, and because I was so concerned with her safety, I dropped the leash because I knew the most she would do was back up enough so I wouldn’t land on her when I fell. When I am on the ground, I get attacked with kisses. Usually, I listen to music in both ears, but her safety is my priority, so I only put one headphone in, and it’s on low. This way, I can listen to things around us.

This works perfectly for us; we both enjoy being outside with the wind in our hair. I also may seem crazy because I do talk to Belle a lot while we are blading, and what I mean by that is I give her commands. So if it’s a small space, I tell her to get closer to me, and when I want her to pick up the pace, I say, “Let’s Go,” just things, so we both stay as safe as possible.

-Dezi