Friday, June 16, 2017

Puppy, Hiking, More Puppy, More Hiking

I know, so much puppy.  But how often do I get a puppy?  Sixteen years since my last puppy so I think I get to post ALL the puppy pictures.

These are from June 5th, a week and a half ago.  She's so much bigger now.



She's all legs and ears.


Poor Ruby, she's such a good sport.


Loves her.




This is called the 'Mr. Piggles is SO Much More Fun Than My Undies Game'.  This is also one of the first shots with my new camera, a Canon point and shoot.  My old point and shoot is dying and I can't have that with a new puppy.



These photos are from yesterday, also with the new camera.  The light was not fabulous but I had some spare moments and wanted to give the new camera a shot.






Tess loves Ruby very much and gets a lot of confidence from her.




She seems so big, and today she seems even bigger.


She's made some nice progress with her confidence as well.  Took her to Home Depot and she walked right in no problem, even with the sliding automatic door.  We've worked on that at the grocery store.  She was a bit nervous of the carts and people squatting in the aisles but otherwise she walked around, no freezing.  We went super early in the a.m., not long after opening so it was quiet.  Maybe next time we'll go when it's a bit busier though if it's too busy I may have a breakdown.  I've backed off the socializing a bit, mostly for my own sanity,  I hate big noisy crowds and busy places.  It's funny that I'm going to all this effort to get her used to places I never intend on going but it's good to get her as used to everything as possible.

She had her final puppy shots at the vet and did way better than last time but still was pretty nervous.  Shaped her to get on the scale, she was around 27 lbs.  Scale kept changing numbers so could be plus or minus a pound or two.  Now the vet says keep the rear dewclaws.  They're actually formed toes, not just wimpy flappy claws, and kind of freaky looking but I'm all for less surgery.  Normally I would spread out distemper and rabies shots but I didn't want to subject her to another vet visit so we did it all at once and thankfully she had no vax reactions.

Took her to see her poodle friend today and she did great - pulling my arm off to get to the yard, flying around the yard as soon as I let her off leash, going over to my friend to say 'hi'.  Still not playing with the other dog but mostly not scared of him either.  Something had recently killed a rabbit in the yard and Ruby was more than happy to check out the scene of the crime.  Overall a fun morning for the gang.  Now to get her as comfortable with some other yards and dogs.

Jonny and I took a nice hike over the weekend on a quiet trail in the Indian Peaks Wilderness.  Such things do still exist, we saw a total of 2 groups of 2 people, one with a dog.  The trail is an old jeep road for the first couple few miles which is probably why it's so quiet, most people prefer a trail.  But it's not too rocky and we were o.k. with it if it meant no crowds.

The snow melt is in full swing so parts of the trail were running with water right next to some remaining snow banks.

This was above the running water, approaching treeline.



There were some nice views along the way.




Top of the World.  Or treeline at least.


At treeline the trail turned to pure snow and it was super steep, not a great combination for hiking boots so we turned around.  I suspect there are more spectacular views from the top of the ridge but it will have to wait for another day.

Tess is too young for such a steep long hike and despite all the snow it was a hot day so we left Ruby home.  Maybe once things thaw out and we plan for an earlier/cooler start we can take Ruby.  The dogs had a good early early morning romp at the dogpark where we practiced recalls and had the joint to ourselves so I didn't feel too badly about leaving them behind.  It's great to see Tess stretch out and run.  She does these funny flying lead changes, looks like a dressage horse.

Went to Target at 8 this morning to get the dogs a cheapo paddling pool since it's getting hot out and neither dog is thrilled about water.  I did some shaping with the clicker to try to get them in the pool.  Tess was batting the water with one paw after the first session and batting for more reps with both feet after the second session.  Then I took her to my friend's house for her doggie play date and she was batting the water in the water dish in the yard.  Such a funny girl.  By the third session today she was standing in the pool with 2 feet comfortably and had a few reps of all four feet in though she jumped out as soon as all four feet were in.  Ruby was standing with 2 feet in on the first session but I didn't get any further with the second session because Tess kept getting in the way.  Will try again later with only Ruby.

I have a short trip planned for next week, have to deal with the hassle of flying.  We'll see how that goes.  Jonny gets the pups all to himself.  We'll see how that goes.