Beautiful Winter Sunday Hike

The weather was beautiful today, so, after Mommy and I took my morning walk and Mommy did her chores, and scraped all the ice off our driveway, we were happy to have 1 1/2 hours left before sunset for a hike.  We went to the preserve closest to our house as is our habit when we don't have a whole lot of time.  We knew the trail conditions wouldn't be great because of the big New Year's snow and then the warm day of rain followed by a cold night and another warm day, but we were surprised that there were only three other cars at the trail parking lot because the day was so nice.  Then we saw the trailhead.

Solid ice (The building is a bathroom. I hope nobody had to use it really badly today!)

Mommy hadn't brought our ice skates so we picked our way past the hockey rink, um trail head, on the snowy sides. Once in the preserve we found that the trail was icy, but not Zamboni smooth ice like the trail head, and after about 50 feet (which we figure was the average walker's tolerance level) the trails became much better.

Much better trail conditions

Lots of good smells.

You can see that the snow was still rather deep just a little way off the trail.

We headed for the one mile loop, but because we were walking much slower than normal we ran out of time before we could do the whole loop.  So after finding a lot of coyote poop and peeing on everything I could reach and waiting while Mommy watched a red tailed hawk hunt, we turned around and headed back to the car. We were passed by two other people and a dog on our way back and when we got back to our car there were still two cars in the lot and an impatient ranger waiting for us to leave so he could lock up.

It was a nice, if slippery .86 mile, 1 1/4 hour hike on a beautiful warm winter day.

My Monthly Diary for December, 2013

Well, this month we had some really cold weather and some ice storms and some warm weather.  Since I'm not allowed to sleep under the covers anymore because of my sleep pooping issue I started waking Mommy up in the middle of the night on the really cold nights to complain that I was cold.  So Mommy got an old nightshirt of hers and fixed it up so that I could wear it.

It has loons on it if you can't tell

I really like it and will whine until Mommy puts it on me on cold nights now.  On Christmas Eve I refused to let Mommy take it off me and I spent the whole day in my jammies. I wanted to keep wearing the nightshirt on Christmas Day too, but Mommy said I was not allowed to wear jammies for two full days in a row.

Speaking of Christmas, Mommy and I went down to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Christmas Day. Usually we go down on Christmas Eve and sleep over, but Mommy's youngest brother couldn't make it into town this year so we stayed home.  When we got down there my cousin Missy and her family were already there. Missy came running up to the car to say hi to me. She was worried when she got there and I wasn't there. Mommy helped me out of the car and we went inside and Missy and I talked for a bit and then Missy got an itchy ear and sat down to scratch it.  I went over to sniff her ear and see what was wrong and SHE SNAPPED AT ME!! Well I don't take that kind of behavior so I roared and snapped back at her and she roared and snapped back at me and then our mommies came to separate us and I fell over.  We both got in trouble for having a slapfight on Christmas Day and we had to sit on opposite sides of the room for awhile and we didn't get to open our presents until the very end of the present opening.  We kind of avoided each other for a while. Then Missy ate my dinner after I left the bowl and I didn't argue about it and at dinner Missy called me over to see if I could get the turkey off the sideboard, but Mommy saw what we were doing and we had to move away from the sideboard and lie down. We did both get some mashed potatoes after dinner though and even though Missy was rude and shoved me aside so she could eat the first batch Mommy put down we didn't fight about it.

Because of my lack of feeling in my hind end ice has become very hazardous for me. I fell over three times just trying to walk to the neighbor two doors down to bring her paper to her door. So Mommy went out and bought me Pawz.  I am NOT overly pleased with them, but I have to admit that I fall a lot less on the icy days when I'm wearing them.  Also, people tend to smile at me and talk to me when I'm wearing them, so that's not bad.

Why do the large sized Pawz only come in purple? 

Big dogs should get black or white or red or something.

On the Saturday after Christmas we had a really warm day in the upper 40s so Mommy and I went for a hike. Then the next day the temperatures dropped to the low 20s and everything that had melted the day before became a sheet of ice.  Even with the Pawz on I couldn't walk that day.  In fact, when I went out in the backyard to go potty I got stuck and Mommy had to come out with my lifting harness to help me get back to the house.

Finally, Mommy calculated out our walks and hikes this year and we did 701.9 miles! We had fewer regular walk miles this year, but thanks to my stroller we nearly doubled our hike miles from last year and, at 111.55 miles we actually passed 2010's, and 2011's hiking totals! That brings our imaginary walk to Alaska and back to Vancouver, Washington if you have been keeping track.