The downside to being responsible...

Today after school Vicki asked if she could walk her friend's dog. This dog is a big black lab, and she's still just a puppy, so she's pretty excitable, but Vicki has held her leash before, so nobody thought anything of it. Except for the dog, who apparently figured out that someone different and less experienced had ahold of her, and took off running. Poor Vicki was afraid to let go of the leash because she didn't want the dog to run away, so she was dragged across the blacktop several yards before we finally caught up to her. She came away with two very skinned knees (she picked a great day to wear shorts, huh?), as well as scrapes, scratches, and bruises all over her legs and hands. She was so brave, though, hardly crying, even though she was shaking like a leaf. As much as I wanted to tell her she should just have let go of the leash to save herself the pain, I had to praise her for being so responsible when she was looking after someone else's pet. And now she has some great battle wounds to show off to everyone tomorrow at school! Isn't that half the fun of being a kid?