One of the great things about Basel is that there are countless acres of open land in and around town, most of which have well-maintained trails, or Wanderweg, running through them (according to Frommers, "On the outskirts of the city are 1,198km (744 miles) of Wanderweg, which are marked trails crisscrossing the scenic highlights of the area..."--and that's just for Basel!). Anyway, it seems a shame to have all this beautiful land and make Grady stick to city streets. The problem is, Grady doesn't always get along with other dogs, and the Swiss like to let thir dogs off leash. So, what to do?

I've figured that as long as Grady is on leash, if there are any problems it's not his fault and if someone wants to yell at me in Swiss German, my feelings won't be hurt. Plus, the Swiss seem to have an innate ability to control their dogs, so I figure the chances of anything serious happening are pretty slim. Today I took him for a walk to the Predigerhof, a restaurant with outdoor seating in the middle of the fields not far from our place [side note: when I just googled Predigerhof, the first thing that came up was what appears to be a gay bar in Zurich--go figure]. Sure enough we must have passed 10-15 dogs, almost all off leash, and in every instance as soon as the people saw Grady getting a little nutty, they'd call their dog over and there were no problems. At one point a huge, beautiful Bernese Mountain Dog came bounding over, and just when I thought we were going to have a confrontation, another dog at the restaurant barked and the Bernese got distracted and ran away.

People still give Grady funny looks sometimes because, frankly, when he gets worked up his breathing sounds sort of like Darth Vader on crack. Plus I've had a few people tell me (in English) that since their dog is a lady, they should get along fine. But overall, other than some apparent shaking of the head at my inability to have a well-behaved dog, I haven't really experienced any of the overt snippiness I was expecting from the Swiss.