Dog Park and Hog Hunting.

Took Conker to the Dog Park today.  When we got there a dog we've met before named Mollie was there.  She is some sort of wire-haired Terrier Lab mix.  Shortly after a gorgeous Malamute Collie mix came in.  The lady who owned her said she was probably Husky/Malamute/Wolf whatever but I definatly saw some Collie.

I can't quite remember her name but she was very nice and played well with Conker.  About 10 minutes later a Chatahoula Leopard Dog mix came in.  He may have been full Catahoula but I don't know them enough to tell.  his name was River and he was full of energy!  He played pretty rough and Conker had to step up his game to keep up with him.  River is nine months old and Conker is almost eight.

Maybe twenty to thirty minutes after the CollieMute left a cute 10 week old Chow/Lab pup I'd met yesterday came in.  His name is Percy.  The pups rolled around and wrestled for a bit until Percy began to get nippy and latched onto River's face.  Percy's owner wants him to learn not to do that so they left.  River was also being a little rough even though Percy, weighing 21 pounds, was easily able to hold his own against River.

There was also a tubby little Miniature Pincher there named Spuds.  He waddled around and growled whenever the pups got too rowdy around him but he was a generally nice little guy.


During all the dog play River's owner and I began to talk about things.  She asked what Conker was and I told her.  If people aren't sure what a Shiba Inu is I explain to them that they are small Japanese hunting dogs related to the Akita Inu.  And that the breed is a really old one since a lot of people ask if they are new or designers.
Surprisingly, River's owner was interested in the hunting part and asked what Shibas were used to hunt.  Rabbits and pheasants I guess, but I told her that there are other Japanese hunting dogs that are used for deer and boar.  Again she surprised me by saying that her husband had been wanting to bowhunt boar so we began a long conversation about boar and how here in Oregon all you need is a hunting license and you can take as many boar whenever you want.  They have no season or limit, Oregon wants them gone.
She asked if I knew where any boar were, I don't know yet, but I do know they have been sighted and even bagged in this area.  There is very little information on boar hunting in Oregon since they are a nongame animal and considered a "predator", something the state wants gone, so they aren't treated like deer and birds who have lots of info available. 
I still have no idea if hunting boar with dogs is allowed here.  I'm going to try to find out in the next few months, and if hunting boar with dogs IS legal, I hope it stays that way until I can get myself some experience and a good pair or trio of hog dogs.

Favorites.

It's funny how one's favorites can change overtime or in a matter of seconds, depending on what the favorite's subject is.  My eight year old brother Teddy's favorite dog used to be Juneau, then it was Sasha.  Then along came Conker.  Guess who the new favorite is.

My reasoning is that Conker is a new dog, still a puppy of sorts.  He'll play with Teddy, Sasha doesn't play and Juneau only fetches.  Conker will fetch, tug, wrestle, let Teddy pet him, you name it.  Another thing might be that he's a boy dog and the Girls are, well, girls.

Teddy keeps telling me how he wants Conker to be his dog and how he's going to have a Shiba Inu when he's older.  I hope Conker shows a bit of the bad side to Shibas so Teddy can see all the aspects of them so he can have a better idea if he really wants one or not when the time comes.  (Teddy is a very responsible kid for his age, I doubt he'll get a dog and not be able to train or care for it.)

Dog of the Midnight Sun

I watched a documentary on the Canadian Inuit Dog, or Qimmiq as it's called by the natives.  It was a pretty interesting documentary and was good for the most part.  It had a few "dominance" things in it but other than that I enjoyed watching it.  The Qimmiq is another one of those rare spitz-types that is almost on the verge of extinction, but thanks to arctic tourism (people interested in authentic experiences) and Inuit who wish to keep their heritage and traditions alive, the breed is still in existence today.

Kinda reminds me of the Nihon Ken in a way.

Rollerblading and the dog park.

I had an idea earlier today so I ran to Mom's storage unit and dug out my rollerblades.  I haven't used them for a couple years but fortunatly my feet remembered how to use them.

First I took Conker on a trail run.  Oddly enough he wouldn't actually run, or even trot for that matter.  He just walked really fast.  I'd easily pass him then have to slow down and wait for him to catch up.
Juneau on the other hand... She was all "RUN RUN RUN SQUIRREL RUN RUN RUN!" She was pretty good about slowing down, not pulling when I told her and stopping when I did.
Sasha lumbered along and after only two blocks I could see she needed to go back.

On Conker's first run we stopped at the local dog park.  I conveniently forgot a camera and since mine was dead (left my charger in Missouri) I'm stuck with stealing my sister's or Mom's.  Anywho, there was a little Rat Terrir pup there who stuck to her family and Conker didn't seem interested in her much and stuck to the other side of the dog park.  It took him a while to realize he wasn't on a leash and when he did he turned into a rocket for a few minutes only stopping to roll in the muddy grass.

We rollerbladed back to the dog park this evening and met a female Lab named Midnight.  She was the perfect playmate for Conker and the two of them romped around while her owner and I chatted about the Shiba Inu.  He had a smart phone that somehow got internet and was reading about them and asking questions, it was kinda neat.

After they left I did a bit of recall training with Conker since he got out earlier today and wouldn't come even when Juneau and Sasha did.  Bad Shiba.
But on the way back I was able to get him to trot and run a bit so hopefully he'll get used to the faster speeds and we'll be able to go a couple miles instead of to the dog park and back.

Conker searching for a treat I threw into the grass.

Missouri to Oregon in three days.

That's right, 2,100 miles, 30+ hours of driving, in three days.  I'm insane.

We left St. Peters at noon on the 15th.  After calling Mom to let her know I was heading out (she told me not to, the weather was going bad but I went anyways) and the bank to set up travel and change my adress, we hit the road.

Conker was less than thrilled to be in the Jeep.  He's not fond of the Jeep, or any vehicle for that matter, and stared at me for the first five hours without moving.

Missouri was hella boring.  Snowish, wettish, boring.  Did you know that chains and winter tires are illegal in Missouri?  ILLEGAL.  You could face jail time if a cop caught you with chains in your car, I think.  Or just a fine, either one.
Nebraska was boring as all getout too. We drove through Missouri and Nebraska in one sitting, only making stops to take a nap, eat and do buisness.  We didn't stop in a hotel the first night, mainly because every time I wanted to stop the damn people wouldn't answer their phones or weren't in the lobby.  That pissed me off so we "slept" at rest stops for an hour or so then hit the road for another two.

I can't really remember Nebraska very well.  It was really dark, flat and dark.  I do remember the first night going up and down some windy mountains.  That was freaky and fun at the same time.  Wind + twisties + dark = awesome driving experience.

Wyoming was mainly flat.  The sun rose shortly before we entered the state.  The sunrise was gorgeous but unfortunately it was behind and to the left of us so I couldn't see it.  I let Conker romp around on the 30 foot lead as I woke myself in the freezing air.  I discovered several "pools" of ice that were completely frozen, or so I thought.  I stomped on one several times and was surprised when it broke and my foot plunged into freezing water.  You'd think the 7 month puppy, not the 22 year old human, would be the one who ended up in the cold water.  Not so.  Conker avoided the ice like the plague.  And surprisingly, despite the sub-freezing temperatures, the roads weren't icy at all.  (Several flashing signs said they were but we hit none.)

This trip through Wyoming was less boring than the other times I've been through it.  I listened to NPR for most of the night and morning and somehow found it interesting.  I don't remember what they talked about, but it was enough to keep me focused on the road the way music can't.  And for some reason semi-trucks are really fond of speeding in Wyoming.  Keep in mind the speed limit on most, if not all of the Interstate 80 is 75mph.  I kept my speed just below it the whole time.

Except for when it was lowered.  I never sped once on this entire trip.
Note Conker's do-it-yourself seat-belt.  Really ghetto, I know, but it worked.  After his five hour staring episode, he got used to being in the Jeep and slept most of the drive.  Whenever he was awake he was either pestering me to play, be scratched or chewing on the huge bully stick I bought him for the trip.  Or trying to rip apart his moose toy.

Conker's "seat" was padded with a body pillow and some towels.  He rode in comfort the whole time, something I began to lack in my shoulders in the middle of Wyoming.

Utah was stunning.  I love red rocks, desert-like formations, trees and snow.  Utah has all of those.  And weird road names in Salt Lake City but that's a different matter.  I don't think I bought gas in Utah at all, let alone stopped more than once.  I did however enjoy driving through it much more than the previous states. 

The Rockies.  Er, the middle of the Rockies.  This was one of the best parts of the trip.  I love driving on steep curvy roads, and that's what the Rockies are.  Sadly, whenever I'm having fun driving time passes by real quickly and it gets boring again.  Conker had gotten used to the curves by the second half and slept through it.

After the Rockies Utah got really flat and really windy.  We drove across the salt flats, a place I'd never been before. The wind was atrocious and there were programmable signs warning semi-trucks and light trailers not to travel on the I-80 due to the 55+ mph winds.  Winds that blew my little Jeep all over the road but it was exciting trying to keep it in my lane as I passed truckers and other cars.

After the Great Salt Lake came these weird green flats of saltwater stretching for miles on both sides of and in-between the highway.  They were only a couple inches deep but they seemed to go on forever!  They made the wind's threat somewhat worse because of ending up in a green, muddy, salty flat pool of yick the result of getting blown off the road.

Which is what happened to this semi-truck barely 20 minutes before I passed it.  The wind was so strong it blew it right over and into the saltwater.  The cab went into the water with the trailer blocking most of the other side of the highway.  I watched a story on it later that night.
Conker and I would have visited the Bonneville Salt Flats if it weren't for the wind.  Well, not the wind, the crap it kicked up.

Being a desert person, I've seen and driven through my fair share of dust storms.  This wasn't the worst I've been in but was pretty hairy in a few spots.  Right as I took this picture the sand picked up and made it worse than it had been when I went to take it.  Normally I wouldn't be operating a camera in these conditions but blew in so quick, I couldn't help but snap a shot before dropping the camera in my lap.

The blowing sand instantly changed to rain when we hit the mountains in Nevada.  The rain wasn't so bad but it changed to hail, then slush and then to wet snow.  My least favorite weather to drive through is slushy wet snow.  Rain, regular snow and sand don't affect my Jeep's traction unless I'm going horribly fast around a corner.  Slush and wet snow... I was going so slow I used the flashers for an hour and got passed by semi-trucks.  Which I hate because they send all kinds of slushy crap onto my windshield that I can't ever get off fast enough because my wipers don't have a light-speed setting.  That was perhaps my least favorite part of the drive. 

Once we got to Elko, fueled up and over the pass, the slushy snow vanished and never reared it's ugly head again.  It was a gorgeous drive from there to Winnemucca where we stayed for the night in a Motel 6 because, again, the other hotels didn't answer their damn phones.  All night Conker was all "bruh burh BURH!" at the smallest sounds.  I had to coax him onto the bed with a treat and he wouldn't stop being all stiff-legged and defensive the entire time he was in the room.  I didn't get very good sleep even though I was exhausted.

The next morning he decided we were waking up at 7:30 am by trotting around the room going "bruh burh bruh" until I got up and turned on the news.  The weather was for partly cloudy skies and snow flurries in the mountains in the afternoon, not a bad forecast considering what I'd gone through the previous day.
And as soon as we hit the road Conker was sleeping again.  I wanted to kill him.

The first stretch of this road through the northwestern mountains of Nevada was my favorite highway.  I like those little single-lane highways where in order to pass someone you have to go into oncoming traffic. The only radio station my Jeep got was ESPN and it was so boring I turned it off and popped in The Lion King soundtrack.
It got snowy as we got closer to Oregon and we said goodbye to the speed limit of 75mph for good and traded it in for a steady 55 mph.  And for good reason.

There's two kinds of speed limits.  The posted limit and the recommended limit.  The posted limit on this stretch of road was 35 while the recommended was 25.  I went 15 and kept the Jeep in 2nd gear the whole time.  It was hella steep and slippery with no guard rail and thankfully nobody came up behind me wanting to go faster.  NPR was on the radio again and despite the danger of falling to our deaths with a single wrong move, I was having fun on the sharply twisted hill.
The flatness between this hill and the next range of snowy mountains was also fun.  Not as fun but still better than Nebraska.  We got up into the mountains with no problems other than a few spots of slush. And then it began to snow. 

The road was mostly hard packed snow that was slippery on corners.  I don't like driving on this but will trade slushy-snow for it any day. 
Someone was stupid and decided to crash on this road during the heavier part of the snow.  I called up Mom and asked for a time estimate, 20 minutes to 2 hours, but it cleared in about 25 and wasn't even on the highway I was on.  For some reason the traffic on that highway backed up onto mine and blocked it.

We'd lost time due to the crash and the winter road conditions which disappeared for a bit when we reached Klamath Falls.  On the other side of the city however loomed a thick bank of fog.

 And a lake with no guard rail.  And more hard packed snow.  Conker decided the fog wasn't enough to keep the minimal sunlight out and struck a cute sleeping pose.
It was nothing but slippery packed snow, light flurries and fog from then until we reached the pass that separates snowy Oregon from wet Oregon.

From then on it was smooth sailing, or driving, to Medford then finally Grant's Pass at 6:30 PM on the 17th where we were greeted by my enthusiastic younger brother who asked me how long I was going to stay about a million times, my younger sister who wanted to hug me before the brother did and my Mom who was on the phone with someone. 



I really hate road trips unless they are entirely on my terms.  This one was, and if I didn't have a ton of crap in the back of my Jeep we'd have made detours and stopped in nifty places and taken longer than three days to get to Oregon.  But it was a move, not a vacation, and I hope to one day be able to go on a long roadtrip with Conker and whatever dogs I may have then and actually have it be based on having fun instead of getting from A to B in X amount of time.
Anywho, hello from Oregon!  Hopefully the blog updates will get more interesting as I find things to do with Conker in our "new" more or less temporary home. 

Packing up the 'puter.

Tomorrow, sometime after noon I think is when we'll be leaving for Oregon.  The trip is going to take roughly 3-4 days, depending on the weather, road conditions, traffic and sleep.  Hopefully it'll be a safe and fun trip.
Next update will be from Oregon so check back in a half week or so!

Airplane Ears.

When does your Shiba (or dog) have airplane ears?  Conker gets them when he's excited or happy, especially if he's eating pork and generally making a mess of the kitchen.

In other news, moving day has been set!  We are taking off for Oregon on Tuesday the 15th.

The Shiba dissaproves of guitar tuning devices.

 "What the heck is that noise?  Will you cut it out?  That's annoying!"  

Sleep is overrated.

I'm jealous of Conker.  If he gets bored for more than 30 seconds he'll fall asleep.  Same with Fred.  Me?   Nope.  Sleeping is near impossible if you take into consideration the fact that Fred snores, likes to give midnight cuddles (death grips are a better name), hogs the covers and doesn't turn off his alarm until I angrily poke him in the eye.
Conker will lick his butt for 30 minutes straight but after he's done he'll conk out and only wake to readjust his placement of paws on my face.  He will usually start out two feet away from me or at the foot of the bed and somehow migrate all the way up to my face by the time he finds it appropriate to be awake.  He likes to do secret cuddles where he slowly gets closer and closer until he's nearly shoving you off the bed.

Unlike Fred, he is easily moved and doesn't make sounds when he's asleep.  Except for the dream barks and grumbles he makes when you do something he doesn't approve of.

Photography.

My digital camera sucks.  When I first got it it was a huge step up from my old one.  At the time 8 mega pixels was awesome.  It was super fast, took nice shots and was a great point-and-shoot camera to have.  (Canon PowerShot SD1100 IS Digital ELPH)  However, something happened to it recently.  It takes forever to take pictures, especially if the flash is used.  They come out blurry unless you take the time to focus over and over and over on the subject of the shot.

Now in order to get a good shot I have to take way too much time refocusing and retaking the picture only to have it come out sub-par in the end.  If I resort to using the flash I loose details and wash out the subject.  I don't like this aspect of digital photography with simple cameras, but I already know I will never intentionally buy a professional digital camera, let alone a point-and-shoot one.  (All my digitals have been gifts.)

I love photography.  I love walking around looking for interesting things to take pictures of.  I've taken well over a thousand pictures of Conker since I got him at the end of last October.  Back in Vancouver Washington I took a photography class while going to school for Welding.  It was a black and white SRL film course and I fell in love with it.  I used an old Minolta XG-M that my Dad had since the early 80's and never want to buy another camera again because of it.  It's not the greatest camera out there but it works well for the type of photography I do.

I took this picture a couple years ago in downtown Vancouver.  It was part of my final project for my photography class.  The scan doesn't do it any justice as it's not that grainy and doesn't have fibers scattered all across it.

In order to get a quality shot you either need to have a really expensive digital camera (or constantly amazing lighting) or take the time to do things the old fashioned way.  Since I don't have the $500+ it'll take to get a digital camera I'd find remotely worth my time and money (not to mention the additional lenses and supplies), I'm going to stick with the old durable Minolta I've had for years.  Plus I'm a sucker for old fashioned.

Taking pictures of dogs is hard.  They move around a lot, get distracted easily and don't like to sit still for pictures.  Conker is no exception to this rule.  While he does like to have his picture taken he isn't one to stick around if you decide to take your time refocusing the camera because the last shot was crap.  That's what I like about my Minolta.  Even if his face is out of focus his butt may not be.  With my digital point-and-shoot if his face is out of focus his butt is going to be as well. 
I'm not going to ditch my digital entirely simply because it's very convenient to have around.  The Minolta requires two hands or a tripod to use, the digital can be used one-handed, like when you're scratching a dog's chest.