The last day of sun

It looks like Friday may be the last time we see the sun for a while. It was a bright and beautiful day, nicely crisp, and we took advantage of it.

I started work early and was pretty much finished by early afternoon. Trooper was wanting to go for a walk so I took him along with Maya and Diesel. We did just two and a quarter miles, but it was all on trails in the woods so it was interesting and more challenging than two miles on the road. Diesel was more animated and active than usual, I'm not sure why. He was out front most of the time and was doing his playful nipping at the other dogs as they were walking. Maya and Trooper just ignored him.

Trooper held up pretty well. Maya didn't call a rest stop but I did a couple times and no one objected. Trooper has been taking Previcox because when I tried him on carprofen it always seemed to upset his stomach. Previcox is rather expensive, however, so I was cutting the pills in half. That was fine for a while and seemed to give him the relief he needed, but when he seemed to be slowing down even more I started giving him the full daily dose. It has picked him up a bit more again, I think. There seems to be more pep in his step and I've even see him do some running on occasion when I call him in from his long, slow strolls around the yard at night.

Maya has a beautiful tail and she knows how to work it.

After the first hike I decided there was enough daylight left for a second one. I had put Theo in Smokey's kennel again today and they had been getting along fine although I'm not sure Theo likes being big brother. I took the two of them on another hike, just over two miles. We had several deer sightings which really excite Theo and that sets off Smokey although he doesn't really know what the excitement is all about. I actually doubled back after the second or third deer sighting because I didn't want two overly excited German Shepherds on my hands. I figured if we backtracked we'd be going through areas that we had just chased the deer out of, and sure enough, we saw no more of them.

Maya and Trooper

Being in a crate really triggers Smokey's aggressive behavior, we are going to have to work on that, but next week I want to get him to the vet, get vaccines, and get him neutered.

Maya waded in to have a drink but got into deeper water
than she had planned on. I'm sure it's cold on the belly.

Smokey is going to be a very good looking dog.

Smokey and Theo going over a log.

Smokey needs a role model and he really
couldn't ask for a better one than Theo.