Recent Hike Pictures

Sasha

Satan, er, Katana

Juneau

Conker

Boydogs. Lookit Katana's face, it's mischievously evil. Eeevil.

Dogs on the trail

Boobtree

A Bath in the Creek

Juneau had recently gone on an 18 hour excursion into the woods and came home covered with dirt, burrs, seeds, mud, and shit. I decided that, since Juneau was filthy, and it had been a while since any of the other dogs had had a good scrubbing, that we'd all go down to the creek. Armed with organic goatmilk soap and an industrial scrubbrush, we set off in Big Red down the road to a pullout with creek access.

 The dogs were thoroughly excited at the sight of the creek and took off into it's chilly waters. They had a brief moment of exhilaration when they spotted a deer that instantly bounded off into the brush, but luckily for the deer, they easily lost it in the thickets. (I was not happy they chased the deer.) After scaring away any other possible wildlife, they set about causing a ruckus in the creek. Swimming, barking, running, and falling off rocks.

Then the bath began.
I started with Miss Filthy and scrubbed Juneau good with the goatsoap until she was nearly white with bubbles. She tolerated it, knowing that she'd be set free to swim once I was done. Then it was Sasha's turn, who had developed a, fragrance, of some sort. Katana was next, and it was his first bath that I had ever given him. He did good and stood still while I soaped him over, but wasn't too happy when I hucked him into the creek when I was done. Conker was last and grumped through his entire scrubbing and was glad when I was done so he could get back to being an asshole to everybody else who was having fun without him.

We stayed at the creek for a good bit, exploring and meandering about, until I'd had enough and headed back to the truck. The dogs didn't want to leave but didn't want to get left behind, so they followed me back to Big Red.

Once home, they immediately set to work coating their still-wet fur with dirt.

Neglect

That's what I've been doing to this blog. However, I have a good reason for it.

I just moved to a plot of acreage right behind the farm I work on that borders an expanse of BLM land! It looks like a redneck lives in my spot right now, but I am still in the process of getting my crap out of the house and over here to my new domain.

I put up 200 feet of fence for the dogs. While it's not the largest yard around, it's plenty big enough for them while I'm at work. I leave the gate open when I am around and just keep an eye on them as they wander around the area surrounding my RV.
Juneau has escaped a couple times (once to go roll in shit... she slept outside that night) but it seems to be sturdy now. I think it's kinda funny that Juneau is the escape artist instead of the Shiba, where that could be considered a breed trait since it happens so often with them.

I plan on staying here for a while, and my landlady has talked about me helping her plant some fruit trees next year (so she's planning on it too!) and I'm going to slowly clear out some nasty brush and expand the fenceline as my finances and time allow to give the dogs some more roaming room while I am at work.

Limpy Creek

Today I took the dogs to Limpy Creek.

They all had a lot of fun!

May - 28th

The dogs join me on the porch while I read after work, usually after they have been fed. They have to wait until I get back around 4:30, I'm not getting up any earlier than I already do to feed them before I go to work.

They watch the goings on of the neighborhood, and occasionally take off after a cat or squirrel...

This is about 10 days worth of food, just the boney and meaty bits (chicken, beef, and pork for this round). The grain-mix, liver, eggs, and extras are stored on top of the lid in their own containers.

Today's meal included a small serving of finely chopped organic greens. I want to see how well the dogs tolerate them, since there are a lot of leftovers after the farmer's markets and we don't try to re-sell two day old greens. (I'm gonna try squash after this.) We eat them, or they are given to the chickens.


Speaking of chickens...

You know it's feeding time when 200 some odd chickens (and a few roosters) gather around the fences or gates when you walk by.

Spines and Parties

Baby Beef day 9: Liver, lung, and spine sections. Big meal today!

 

The Girls crunched, munched, ripped, and tore through their spine sections. They LOVED today's meal and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Sasha was very efficient with her section, incredibly wolf-like in the way she ate it. Juneau was a bit more dainty than her sister.

Here's a video of them eating their spine sections. Sorry, no audio.

My neighbor gave me one of those smart phones that she never uses anymore, which has a camera (and is the reason she gave it to me) so I can now take pictures that I can actually see what my subject is and are of semi-decent quality! I can take video and audio recordings too, but I haven't figured out if the video is always silent or what yet. Still learning how to use this thing.
(No, I will not be using it as a phone. Just a camera.)


Today my neighbor (who gave me the smartphone) threw a birthday party for her Carin Terrier, Toby, who is turning 9. There was something like 16 or so dogs who showed up, including my three. All of whom behaved much better than I thought they would, no fights or squabbles occurred. (Conker and Juneau barked a few times but didn't start anything.)
There was an assortment of dogs: Bullmastiff, Bloodhound, Bulldog, Yorkshire, Carin, Tibetan, and West Highland White Terriers, my two mutts, a Standard Poodle, The Emperor (a.k.a. Shiba Inu), Dachshund, and a generic Labbish dog.
I lent Conker to an elderly Irish lady for the party since she had no dog of her own, with whom Conker became good friends and behaved nicely for. We tied balloons to the dog's collars and marched them down the street, people giving us odd looks, some coming out to see what the parade was for.
After the parade we migrated to the backyard for cake and yogurt snacks, which Sasha hogged out on, eating Juneau's share several times, and Conker ignored.

Overall it was a lot of fun, the dogs enjoyed it (especially Sasha who is now in a food-induced coma), and I am very proud of Conker for not being a jackass to everyone and behaving well for the Irish lady.

Happenings in the Past Week

I read a lot of books. A lot of books. Something like, 5-8 books? 7 books. I started reading books before I took a blogging break though, so I can't count all them them during the past week.
Lets see... I read: Dog Sense, Born to Run,  Dr. Pitcairn's Complete Guide to Natural Health for Dogs & Cats, The Hunger Games, The Social Lives of Dogs, Pack of Two, and Through the Eyes of a Dog.
I currently have on hold at the library: How the Dog Became the Dog. It needs to hurry up and get returned so I can read it.


Because of the shoulder/neck/arm issue, I spent very little time on the computer for the first few days, less than 20 minutes a day. I gradually began to increase the time until I found that I can go an hour to two till my shoulder begins to tell me to get off. If I refrain from putting my left arm up on the desk (required for typing, unfortunately) then I can go a bit longer. But even if I leave my arm off the desk for the entire time, it's sitting at the comp (no matter where I put my arm) that makes it hurt so I can't spend as much time on it as I would my own currently-dead computer.

Yay. I am so excited. </sarcasam>

I bought a thingy, doggy diner? Dish holder, at Ross, for $8. It came with two bowls, a ball (dead) a rope toy (almost dead), and some rawhides. And a lot of paper stuff, crinkled shredded stuff. Like the stuff that's in Easter baskets, but made out of paper.
The diner-holder is not metal colored anymore though, I "painted" it black with rattle-can PlastiDip so it wouldn't clink when Conker eats. The noise bugged him enough that he wouldn't eat if a bowl was in it so I had to fix it somehow.
I also bought a heavy-duty stainless bowl that I am now obsessed with for about $3.50.

The dogs all got some raw food. The Girls got: Pork, chicken bones, ground beef, canned mollusks, gizzard, heart, liver. Conker got: chicken leg, pork, other stuff...

Conker made a funny face.

Got a picture of Conker looking bizarre (and kinda fat) while checking out a Kong.

The dogs got some more raw food. This time chicken boobs with the usual nonsense.

I have begun to train Juneau to tolerate the sound of a cap gun, with hopes that she will be able to eventually progress to gunfire (fireworks make her shake, so maybe not) so I can use her as a Coot retriever this upcoming waterfowl season.  I am doing it by getting her into the retrieving mode by having her play with a toy, then giving her lots of praise and having her focus on the toy, then firing the cap gun, more praise, and chucking the toy before she has a chance to flip out. So far it's working. Conker doesn't seem to care either way.

If she ends up getting stuck at the sound of actual gunfire, I will attempt to train Conker to do water retrieves, but I have high doubts that will actually work. He will retrieve, in shallow water, sometimes, if he wants to, and maybe-sorta-not-really brings things back. He is fine with loud noises, much moreso than Juneau, and I think he would adapt to gunfire a hellova lot easier than she would, but he won't leap into freezing water deeper than he is tall without a second thought like Juneau will.

He would be a better squirrel dog. He loves to tree things, and barks up a storm when he does.


The furnace has finally been fixed. No more staying up late tending the fire. I miss the fire, it has much better warmth than the furnace, and I am very well adapted to this nocturnal schedule of sleeping from 10AM to 6PM and being awake during the evening, night, and early morning. Anytime I try to break it, I fail dramatically and revert back to "normal" within a day.

Oh, and these things don't seem to know what "Leave me alone." means anymore. Seriously. Everywhere I go, they are there. Following, no, STALKING me, and staring at me like their lives depend on getting one more, no, two more, scratches before I send them off to do something that does not intrude upon my book reading.

Nighttime Pack Walk

Normally we go for a walk around 10-12 at night, but tonight around 8ish was relatively warm (48 degrees) with little if any rain. I decided to take advantage of that and harnessed and packed up the dogs for our 2 mile walk.

Each dog has a certain leash-hookup and walking position.

Conker gets the full-length of his leash and is allowed to pull (not hard) out front. He also has a bungee attached to the leash, which is hooked to my pack's belt strap.
Conker carried two empty mini Nalgine bottles. (Getting him used to the bulk)
 

Sasha is to my right and slightly in front, just behind Conker. She gets almost the full length of her leash which is looped around my pack's belt strap and clipped to the floating ring on her leash.
Sasha carried a home-made dog first-aid kit, some rope and a couple toys.

Juneau is on my left, either right beside or slightly in front. She gets half her leash length, one clip attached to the metal thing on her harness, the other on the tow loop. A carabiner is attached to the floating ring and my belt strap.
Juneau carried about 3 liters, or roughly just over 6 pounds.




This setup enables me to walk hands free and have better control over the dogs if I need it.

First visit to Cathedral Hills in the year 2012

Argh it's 10 days into 2012 and we hadn't been to Cathedral hills yet! So I packed the dogs up and drove them down there for a quick 3 1/3 mile hike. I went a bit later than I normally do and ran into school traffic (buses, school zones, etc.) on the way there. I usually hit that stuff on the way back, and around that time, a lot of people flock to the hiking trails so I thought it might have been a bit crowded.
It wasn't at first, but it sure was when we left. There was a line for my parking spot.

Blurry!

Of course the Fuji messed up every picture I took, so there are no good ones to show.  We had fun though, and for the most part the dogs all listened well enough to be off-leash for most of the hike.

Conker and Sasha expecting treats.

Juneau actually had better recall than Conker, which isn't usually the case.  She gets better with every hike but still has some spots that need working out here and there. Sasha, I don't know if I'll ever get her to fully ignore the fresh horse crap that's abundant on the trails.

Derp Dog

But when she does listen, she's very enthusiastic about it.

Cool Dog

We saw a neat dog at the dog park today.

His owners think he is a Shar Pei American Bulldog mix.

 He was pretty cool.  I can't remember his name though.

Neighbor's Dogs... Again

Well, they got rid of Dakota a little while ago.  A "new" dog has stepped into her place.  For the longest time I've been calling him "Tomato" since I had no idea what his name was, and he really liked tomatoes.
They are now trying to get rid of them both.  In their ad they claim to have moved to a new place that only allowes 25 lb or under dogs... sure. 

We recently moved and cannot have any dogs over 25 pounds so we need to rehome our two dogs.
The first is a three year old Irish Wolfhound mix named Monty, he is approx. 60 pounds and looks like a giant wire haired terrier.
He is very cute and affectionate and loves water and car rides. He can be a little hyper when he's excited but its usually when he meets new poeple or
goes new places. He is licensed; nuetered, rabbies shot.

Second is a smaller shepard mix, approx. 45 pounds named Bella, she is very sweet and timid and loves to fetch. She is mostly an outside dog and would
do best with a big fenced yard to run in. She is spayed and had her rabbies shot.

We want them to go to the best possible homes, so we"ll probably be selective on who we let take them.

Well, I hope they get good homes, since they are nice dogs.  Monty is the one Conker fence fights with, but other than that, he's a pretty cool dog.