I put Lagniappe to work today

So since it was a beautiful morning, I took Lagniappe and went down to Harpers Ferry for a bit. Of course he had to make a dog bee-line for the Swiss Miss ice cream shop on Potomac Street where he always gets a soft-serve ice cream cone. He was so excited at being back there (he hasn't been there in over a month) that he kept jumping up on the counter and thrusting his head in the customer service window until he got his cone, which he grabbed from the nice lady there and wolfed down in seconds. Then I took Lagniappe over to the John Brown engine house and he assumed his regular sopt inside on the floor, exactly where he used to lay when I'd taken him here so many times before. I loved to read my books--Twain, Steinbeck, Bradbury, etc.--while sitting on the faux rifle crates inside, taking breaks from my reading to talk to any tourists who popped inside and expressed any interest at all in the story of John Brown (or as I call him, "America's first terrorist") or the local area. Then I took my mutt to the river. Rolling my wonderful wheelchair up the hill to the footbridge across the Potomac, (Yes I still have this accursed thing until I can get cleared for crutches) I let Lagniappe get out in front of me on his leash and just for fun I yelled: "Ya mule! Giddyup!" To my surprise and delight, he began pulling and my chair began rolling and Lagniappe actually pulled me clear across the bridge. I quickly learned how to use his leash to steer my chair so that I did not hit the fencing on either side, and we went all the way across and then back again. This was great--free dog motive power and he maintained a nice steady pace that was the equivallent of a fast walk. Then since he did so well, I put him to more hauling down in town, letting him pull me up and down the sidewalk a few more times as I shouted out "Ya, Ya! Gee-up!" and tourists looked on and laughed. There were a few snags, like when he pulled my over some rough rocks and nearly dumped me out of the chair, and the time that he saw another dog and got distracted for a few seconds, but all-in-all, he did well and I recommend dog power for others with wheelchairs. It was great to finally find a use for this canine and besides being fun it let him work off some of those ice cream calories.