We went to the dog park today, something we haven't done in a long time. Nobody was there, but that was fine. Conker sniffed and ran and rolled in the sand, then we visited the creek.

Conker really likes the creek. Sometimes he visits it five times in one dog park session (about an hour, sometimes more). It seems to supercharge him and he'll run around like a rocket after going for a swim.
Some of the trees at the dog park are beginning to show signs of fall, and the temperatures reflect that. It was a very nice mild day with a slight breeze.

On our hike, Conker was less than ethsusiastic and spent most of his time either lagging way behind or way off in front speeding along and trying to take trails that led back to the parking lot.

This picture shows how darned leggy Conker is. Conker is very leggy for a Shiba.

The hike was only around 3.5 miles or so, not too long. We ran into a pack of off-leash (but polite) dogs that Conker wanted absolutely nothing to do with and ran away from, and bayed at from a distance, right at the beginning of the hike. That could have been why he wanted to leave.

Snow Day!

We haven't had one of these for... a whole year! Conker was psyched last night with the snow, and even more excited today on our morning hike. (Morning? Yes, I did get up before noon for the first time ever.)

And now, the evidence.

On the way to Cathedral Hills, JPR (lameass local public radio station) played Winter by Antonio Vivaldi (how cliche) but hey, it's not like we get snow much so I guess it was alright. I actually really like that piece, it's my favorite of the Four Seasons.

The first thing Conker did when we hit the trail was take off off-trail somewhere. I don't know if he was chasing something (looked like it) or was just OMFGSNOWGOTTARUNOMGOMGWTFRUN! I imagine many other Shiba owners would have had a miniature (or major) meltdown at the sight (or lack of) their Shiba running off into the snow-covered forest. I just walked around a bit then stepped off-trail and hollered at Conker to get his scrawny butt back here, and he did, so we began our snow hike.

I, like I usually do, overdressed a bit. Though snow was on the ground, it was a relatively "warm" 36 degrees or so. I had on long johns with waterproof (but not snowboarding, I almost but didn't wear those) pants, my nasty-ass shoes (smell like the pond I went into to fetch my Coots), two pairs of socks, a scarf, and my favorite jacket that I always wear. And a raccoon skin hat. With a tail.

Conker blew his coat early this year, thanks to the trip to AZ for Christmas. He didn't seem to notice though, and the lack of undercoat didn't slow him down one bit. Sped him up I might think, actually.

Obligatory Shiba-on-the-pick-nick-table picture.

There was some pretty spiffy scenery too.

Some parts of the trails had more snow than others. My guess is that something around 2 inches fell in Cathedral Hills which is only a little over 5 miles from my house. Funny how much of a difference about 100-300 feet in elevation makes when it comes to this. (Other places not-too-far-away got 6 inches or more.)

 We played Conker's second favorite snow game. (More pictures of this will be posted later.)

Overall it was a really nice hike. We did about 3.75 miles, not too bad, but I'd like to start making these hikes 5+ as the average instead of slightly over 3. We only ran into one other person, a man and his Basset Hound who got along with Conker nicely.


After driving back home, I took all three dogs to the dog park. That short hour between when I left and got back resulted in almost all the snow in town being melted. It's almost all completely gone now.

All dogs did a lot of running around and getting muddy.

I think Juneau had the most fun out of the three.  She got the most mud on her and her harness. The thing finally looks like it's been used now.

Photodump

I was retarded yesterday and took well over 200 pictures, I need to do something with them so I'm going to spam the blog with some of the better photos.  The brighter colored ones are when I had the manual mode on.  The faded ones are from auto, which still sucks like noneother.

This is probably my favorite.  Of Conker's butt.

Next up we have foamy-mouth Juneau!

Still foamy.

Notice how her expression doesn't change.

My favorite derp dog.

Sasha is hard to take pictures of.

Conker lookin good.

He decided that playing fetch was no longer beneath him.

His expression changes a little more than Juneau's.

Derp.

Juneau's ball. (notice how foamy it is)  And a Sasha nose photo-bomb.

Juneau and her foamy ball.

And that's it!  Oh wait one more.

Random Dog: Mac

I've only met Mac a couple times but he is such a cute, sweet little guy that I can't help but write about him.  Mac is roughly 8 months old?  I can't remember, but he's still very young.  He is a Maltese mix and is very fun to watch.  He will run like mad around and around the other dogs then stop, spin, run and stop and spin again then take off running across the park.  He will dodge under, behind or in front of other dogs and normally gets a pack chasing after him.  Then he will walk over to the tables, hop up and be loved on by all the people at the park.

Mac is a type of small dog that I might be able to pull off owning.  The only "flaw" that I can think of is the barking.  He barks, yaps really, which I can't stand.  He will run up to the fence and yap at people or dogs on the other side.  his owner told me he also yaps at home for no apparent reason.  That's too bad since that is also something I can't stand.

Anyways, he is a very neat little dog.  He's about half Conker's size but can be faster at times.  Conker loves to chase him around and wrestle if he decided he's suddenly in the mood for playing.


In other news...

The girls ran out of their Lamb flavor yesterday.  They haven't tried the Wetlands (duck?) yet so that's what I grabbed at Mini Pet Mart today.  One of the employees dogged me down and demanded to give Conker a treat so I let him.  He is really fascinated with Conker and loves to ask questions about the Shiba Inu breed every time I come in.  He is beginning to seriously conciser getting one despite the negative things I've told him about them.  (I always warn curious people about what Shibas truly are) so one of these days I'm going to get up a list of good Northwest breeders and give it to him so if he does get one it's from a good place.  (If you know of some tell me who they are, I'd like to know as well)

So the Girls like usual were enthusiastic about their kibble.  I'm still not too sure but I believe they've liked the salmon flavor the most but their poops were best on the lamb.  I'll compare it to the duck and see how that goes, but I doubt I'm going to stick to any one formula since rotation is a good thing.

I've calculated out that each 15 pound bag lasts roughly 3 weeks with the girls.  Juneau eats 2 1/2 cups (she's a ton more active now) and Sasha gets about 1 cup.  I've also discovered that the 15 pound bags cost $27.99 at MPM and the 30 pound bags of TOTW cost $40 at the grange.  So after this bag I'm most likely going to be getting the larger bags at the Grange since the smaller ones don't really last too long.

Riverside Park

Today Conker and I went to Riverside Park.  I haven't ever been here for anything other than Boatnik and since we went hiking yesterday I figured today would be a cool down day.

Riverside park is pretty nice.  It's not huge but it's a good size.  The Boatnik fair is held here afterall, complete with rides, food and all that.  Anyways, it was a nice shaded walk with relatively few people so Conker wasn't bothered by anyone.  There was plenty of new smells for keep him busy for the few who did ntotice him.

The Rouge River itself is actually not too easy to get down to.  The bank drops down pretty steeply and there is no actual shoreline on this stretch of the river.  Conker and I found a boat launch and visited the river from there. 

With a little encouragement (me stepping in and showing him it was okay) Conker walked into the Rouge and pawed at the water.  Then he saw the geese.  Oops.

After visiting the river we walked around the park for a short while then headed to the Grange. Conker's never been in there before and he did okay.  He still doesn't really like to go into buildings but the Grange is more open than Mini Pet Mart.
I found a Ruffwear Approach pack for $24.99 though!  It fit Conker PERFECTLY but I lack the money plus with Conker's LP he's not going to be carrying a pack anytime soon.  I might hop in there and get one anyways just in case Conker has surgery or I get another Conker-sized dog in the future. 

On our way home we stopped at the dog park.  There was a Labish dog named Morgan who I've never seen before there then a man with a Cocker Spaniel and some GSD mutt who I have met.  I didn't stay too this time.  On our way out of the park Conker surprised me by taking off into the creek.

Okay not too surprised but instead of his normal splashing in paw-deep water he jumped into the deep end and swam!  He almost never does this on his own nor looks like he's having fun if I make him go in.  But this time it was all him and he was loving it.  Weirdo.

Pictures from today

Hasn't been much going on lately.  Real boring, even though there are a ton of people here.  The adults went wine tasting today, younger-taller brother and I took the kids to the local "air park" which is a room with a ton of trampolines in it and such.  Us bigger folks didn't jump but the kids had fun.

Conker's been really bored.  Almost to the point of pencil chewing, so I took him and Juneau to the dog park since Sasha already got a walk today.

After a bit of playing with the chuckit I took them to the creek to cool off.  It was a bit warm today and they looked somewhat hot.

Conker gets really excited to go into the creek now.  He's also started swimming in the deeper parts.  If there's another dog he has more fun that he does by himself.

Juneau got about 20 more minutes of fetch in and had nearly dried off when they got to go back into the creek.  The video above was actually from the second trip in.  There is a patch of tall grass next to the fence that Juneau likes to lay in during cool-down periods in between games of fetch.

Conker got really dirty after the second creek trip.  He also played a bit of fetch, then tug with a busted tennis ball.

When we got back it was time to feed the Girls.  They got Lamb flavored TOTW with some tuna in there.  No real reason behind the tuna, I just decided to be nice.  Sasha gets a bit of water in her kibble to slow her down, I just recently found that out.

Conker was his usual self while the Girls ate and put cute Shiba mode in overdrive.  It didn't work.



In other news...

My uncle apparently thinks it's okay to "let" Conker eat a piece of stinkin pizza.  My cousin came in and saw Conker eating it and TOLD my uncle that he was, but uncle didn't even try to take it from Conker since "it was already in his mouth."  Tell him to drop it you moron.  Thanks for letting my dog eat shit that'll make him either barf or have cannon ass tomorrow.  Or tonight, and if he does... I'm gonna fucking blow a fuse.

Sasha's progress

Conker got: Pork meat with piece of turkey back, chicken wingtip, heart and liver, beef kidney.

It was sooo good.

Sasha has been making some slow progress.  She weighed 70 pounds when I got here in February, but I didn't put her on any serious diet regime until they were switched to Taste of the Wild some weeks back.  Sasha now weighs 65 pounds, so she's lost 5.  She needs to loose at least another 10 for me to be happy, preferably 15, but I'll take what I can get right now.

I try to take Sasha on a walk at least every other day.  Today she got to go to the dog park (Juneau didn't come) and with the exception of a couple small growls and rushes, she did very well with the other dogs.  She only got riled up when Conker was being chased by a superfast red merle Border Collie.  

Sasha is beginning to get a bit of a waistline.  It's not much, but at least you can see it now.  Hopefully she'll continue to be good with other dogs at the dog park so I can bring her along more often.  That will help her loose weight more quickly since she would be going on more and longer walks.  Plus she can run around and go swim in the creek before we go in and after exiting the park.

Fancy Beagle

So today at the dog park I saw a Fancy Beagle!  Buckley over at Inu-Baka is a Fancy Beagle, and this pup was the exact same mix of Beagle/Bichon.  He was a very nice dog and his name was either Travis or Tucker, I can't remember exactly but I know it started with a T.  I think it was Tucker... I didn't get any good photos but I did get some.  Here they are.

Fancy Beagle from above.

Fancy Beagle in background while Conker and Midnight mingle.

Conker and Fancy Beagle look at Midnight.

This picture looks kinda wrong... Sorry.

Fancy Beagle is tired.

The owner was kinda surprised when I asked if he was a Beagle/Bichon mix and that I got it right.  I might see him again since the owner says they come more often in the summer and now that the dog park isn't a marsh he'll be dropping by more.  He also knows the Westies who come to the park almost every day.

Fun dog park day

Today was a nice day, so there were naturally a lot of people at the dog park.  Hank and River were there, and a mix puppy I'd met once before.  The Mini Aussie Rocket (who tried to hump my leg) and Shadow were there, the Westies showed up, a 7 month Siberian Husky was there...
There were 11 dogs at one point.  It was fun.

Conker got along with everybody, as usual.  The owner of the Siberian was knowledgeable on the breed, unlike most people who get Siberians, and was fun to talk to.  I'm hoping she'll come to that park more often than the other dog park she goes to more often.

After most of the people left it was me and Conker, River, Parker the Poodle and his Lab friend, then two people came in with their dogs.  An Australian Shepherd who was a sweetie and a full blooded Catahoula Leopard Dog named Harley.
That was the highlight of my day.  Harley was awesome!  She was so neat to watch, her colors and patterns were amazing and her owners were very nice people who were surprised I even knew what Harley was.  Conker, much to my amazement, actually let them pet him!  A woman and man whom he'd never met before, he let them unleash their love on him.  Full-on scratches and rubs, kisses, everything.  That was something right there, and that made me very happy to see.

Sadly I didn't get any pictures of any of the dogs since I was so busy talking and watching them play.  But I did get this shot of Conker heeling as we walked home.

Kinda hard to tell that he's walking beside me, but if you notice my shadow's legs, he is right between them and the sun was at an angle that made that right beside me.

Dog Park Buddies

Conker watches River smell something behind him.

Yesterday was a nice day, so we went to the dog park.  Conker was pretty chill the entire time, and since it was warm outside he overheated easily due to his still present winter coat.  He didn't do too much running around.
Hank the Hound dog was already there, and he and Conker ran around and wrestled a bit.  Ellie the Pit Bull was also there but left soon after.
Then River the Catahoula mix showed up, and that's when things got going.

Hank leads the pack.

Hank is very fast.  For a while River was the fastet, but when Hank began to come he took the lead.  River's owner was shocked to see Hank running faster than River, who she claims has a bit of greyhound in him.  They would run around in a big loop around us (we were sitting on the hill) while Conker tried to cut them off since he can't really keep up.

Conker is getting left behind again.

Then they would come around again.  They would have a brief wrestle on the sand then get going again.  It was fun to watch.

Everybody chillin.

They eventually wore themselves out and took a break behind us.  Every now and then one of them would pop into somebody's lap and demand to be pet.  It was overall a very good visit.