Spreading our scent

Today was the best day we've had in weeks, so I needed to get myself and some dogs out for walks. The trails are still muddy though, and I'm still averse to ticks, so we needed to stick to the roads at Pleasant Grove. I devised two strategies to combat the monotony of walk walking. First, I walked multiple dogs for short distances: 2, 2, and 1 mile stretches with first Maya and TJ, then Maya and Rugger, and finally Obi by himself. The other plan was to stop when we encountered a shady spot and do some brushing. In this way we left a variety of dog hair floating in the breeze across the fields at Pleasant Grove. That's got to be as good for scent marking as pissing on everything. Plus, it got rid of fur that would otherwise be forming dust bunnies in our house. That's my theory and none of the dogs argued with me about it.

Maya's butt and belly are white, in addition to
her undercoat and her pretty white feet.

TJ's tail holds a lot of excess fur and it doesn't
come out on its own, it needs to be brushed.
He's much better about it than he used to be.

TJ always looks good after a brushing.

I kept trying to get a picture of Maya and this
is what all the pictures looked like. She was
walking in my shadow for shade. Smart girl.

Sorry for the shadow, but a brushed out TJ is a beautiful dog.

TJ still has that happy smile.

Maya sticking close, and
not just for the shade.

Rugger's walk with Maya

I've got to get this dog adopted, he is really
bonding to me.

"Look at me as if I mean, something to you."
- Mary Chapin Carpenter, "The Hard Way"

"I'm going to be responsible for your protection and welfare
on an ongoing basis. In other words, I'm your dog."
- Spots, from "Isle of Dogs"

We walked down the hill from the pole barn to check the water
level in the stream. The flood water had receded, but you
could tell that the low lying area had been underwater.

This is Maya alerting on something in the woods.
Tail up and curled tight, ears like radar dishes.

Rugger is a great dog.

Maya had already had two walks totalling four miles, so I
took Obi out on his own. We walked just about one mile,
down the trail from the dog park to the river.

The river had receded back to its banks, but
there was a lot of debris in the low area and you
could tell that it had been under quite a bit of
water at one time.

A pair of ducks trying to find a calm spot in
the swollen river, hoping for a return to normalcy.

The river was still quite high so the area they
call the "sandy beach" was submerged. This
sandy spot was at the top of the river bank.

When his feet hit the sand he started running around like a madman
and even grabbed a mouthful of sand in his mouth. I don't
know if it's because of the new, strange texture on his feet that
excited him, or if he was getting hit by the same biting flies
that started attacking me.

It was another new experience under his belt.
I would have taken him into the dog park, which
is something I never do, but there was no one there!