K9 Musings

We have a pretty awesome park system in my county. Several nice parks with some great trails. And dogs are allowed 🙂 I’m trying to get out and take advantage of them more!

Today I went to a new to me park. It’s one of the ones farther away and not in a direction that I usually travel. But it was a cooler Sunday morning and the day was wide open so off we went.

Over 800 acres, lakes, camping, playgrounds and miles of trails!  We ended up hiking trail 5 – intermediate difficulty and about 2.5 miles.

Kolt has mastered the skills of checking in with me, waiting for me and recalling off of distractions. So he enjoyed some off leash privileges.

Kenzi has mastered the skills of pushing the boundaries and obsessing over squirrels. So she stayed on leash… It’s really rather mind boggling sometimes. She is a great search dog and stays focused on her job when it’s time to work. But just hiking? All bets are off.

The park had several covered benches. Perfect for resting. Or, if you’re like me, making dogs pose for cute pictures.

Break time! About halfway through. We were all panting. There were some major hills to go up and down!

Another bench, another picture. So nice of them to situate the benches differently so I could easily photograph from different angles 😀

We had fun. And we got tired. It was a great morning.

I’ve decided that if I had any more dogs then undertaking a project like this would require more people.

I stopped by a local playground yesterday to do some basic conditioning and balance work with the dogs. Two minutes into working Kolt, I decided that I had found the *perfect* spot for posed pictures of both dogs – a feat that I do not often attempt.

Here’s why….

The goal is to get out, grab some treats and the camera, put both dogs in a “stay” at the right spot, bribe them with treats and be done in two minutes with a picture like this –

Instead, they end up trying all sorts of weird positions. Like it’s not possible to just sit or stand there and look at the camera. Seriously, just stand still, stare at me, get treats. If you’ve ever tried taking pictures of any child between the ages of about 2 and 15 then you probably understand what I mean.

Nope, can’t make it easy…

I finally get one dog situated and staring nicely and the other is distracted. Or unsure of the soul sucking camera (even though camera = treats, it’s still quite suspicious)

Then they both get distracted. To be fair, I think there were kids playing a quarter mile away. BUT I HAD TREATS!! And good ones at that.

Umm, person, you’re getting in between us and out distraction – not cool!

We did finally end up with this. I’ll take it.

Obviously, the above was not challenging enough. Or something. Because I just had to try another *perfect* spot!

This was the attitude that I got. They must both have cooties or something -“you want us next to each other? and touching each other??? Ugh!”

But they eventually humored me enough for this –

And this!

I’m glad I got the pictures. The dogs, well, I think they liked the treats.

It’s hot here. Like super duper hot. Today’s temps are in the low nineties with high humidity.

I know. This is typical summer weather for all those who live south of, say, Kentucky. But I’m in Michigan and it could easily be 100 degrees colder six months from now. So this it hot.

Today’s actives included the river. This branch of the Black River is usually a bit more impressive but due to how dry it’s been here lately, it’s pretty low right now. The dogs often swim here but today they could only splash. They didn’t seem to mind.

I took two toys to play with. But these two are like kids in that the best toy is the one that the other one has. Almost to the point where they’d let one toy can float away while competing for the other. The “mom” voice is used at times…

Our time pretty much went like this –

“She has the toy. I want it”

“Neener, neener – I have the toy!!!”

“Just try and take it! I dare you!!”

“Double dog dare you!!”

“Well, since you insisted…”

” I got it! I got it!”

“Harrumph. Be that way. I really didn’t want the old toy anyway”

“Except I kinda do want it”

And so on and so on.

It was all quite humorous.

In the end, Kenzi ended up with both toys. Mission accomplished for the bossy dog!

I had about three ideas to blog about tonight. And started writing another blog post. And then I just sat here looking at my dogs. Happy, content, sleeping at my feet.

It was hot today – 92 with high humidity. Then it stormed. So I didn’t do too much with the dogs. A bit of disc, a little trick training, some running around the farm.

And now we’re just settled in for the night.

*big happy sigh*