Halloween is almost here

We have been trying to find chances to play in the leaves but have been dogged by rainy weather. Still, Louise needs her daily outings so we find ourselves in the elements. The chestnuts seem to be gone now, the squirrels have made short work of them. Louise still looks in a few spots to see if there is one there but she is figuring out that they are gone.

I have to say though, on our walk this afternoon I noticed something... weird. Louise was being her normal self when all of a sudden the sky darkened and she barked in a deeper, more evil sounding voice. She saw a crow on the road and darted across the sidewalk much faster than normal. I happened to be taking a picture at the time and well, the results are a little odd. You be the judge. But, just as soon as I thought it happened, the sky lightened up a little and Louise was acting normal again. No crows (or squirrels) were harmed on this walk. When we got home I checked the calendar to see when the next full moon was - it's still a week or so away.

Louise has been acting like nothing unusual happened, in fact, here is a video I took mere moments later. However, our cats seem to be telling a different story and have been giving Louise more space than usual.

I hope we don't have a re-emergence of the Demon Dog...

Followup post.

Ok, things seem to be settled down so here's a few of the photos I meant to post earlier. The chestnut games still continue - depending on who you are, it's either a good thing or a bad thing that there are a few chestnut trees right out front of our main entrance. This means Louise has a steady supply of nuts to choose from.

As usual, I've forgotten what I was going to say when I took the photos. It's doubly bad because now I've also forgotten what I was going to say when I created the original blog post. One day I'm going to look back at all this (assuming I still have my mental faculties) and wonder how I could be so absent minded. Or maybe not. Maybe I'll just look at the pictures.

Okay these next few shots are all pretty similar but I couldn't choose which of them to go with so you get to see them all. Obviously a yawning dog is a fun photography subject - maybe I'll upload that one to loldogs to see what comments I get.

These photos were taken just before we had a week of rainy weather. Now it seems that we will be having another one of those weeks which leads me to believe that autumn in the Pacific Northwest is underway. Louise doesn't care - she just rummages around trying to get a good sniff under the leaves in case there are some - you guessed it - chestnuts laying around.

Speaking of leaves, last year I got a few really good shots of Louise surrounded with some vibrant orange maple leaves. They are starting to change colour again so hopefully in another week or so I will be able to get updated photos. Of course, I might not get the chance at all if the weather stays wet. We will see. Often when the forecast is for rain, we get about an hour's worth and then empty overcast weather the rest of the time. Which is just fine by me.

Chasing Chestnuts

Well fall is here in Vancouver. If you look closely at this first photo you will see our crazy dog with a fresh chestnut in her mouth. As can be expected they are dropping from the trees this time of the year and Louise has been finding them. In her perfect world she will get me to toss a chestnut down the sidewalk for her to chase after.

In the excitement of the chase, Louise has been known to lose track of her chestnut.

I have also noticed that if I let her catch one, she will happily carry it with her on our walk. Eventually she decides to put it down, but usually not without prompting. The best part of this is that she doesn't bother chasing cars if a chestnut is in play. As you can imagine, I've been enjoying this a lot. I have to be careful though - the last thing I need is for Louise to crash into an unsuspecting skunk while chasing after a nut.

I'm having trouble uploading photos tonight. I'll see if I can get at least one more with this post but it's looking like I'll have to come back later, after Google has sorted out whatever internal problem they have.

Almost Skunked!

The other night Wheezie and I were out for our evening walk. It was a quiet night so I had her off-leash, we both kind of prefer that arrangement. Louise was being good and I was able to keep my hands in my pockets. She was walking within ten paces of me, exploring the grass and fire hydrants as per usual so I wasn't really paying attention.

My focus returned immediately when I noticed Louise approaching the business end of a wary skunk. Louise was all set to sniff the nethers of what she thought was a strange looking dog and the skunk wasn't having any of it. The tail was up and quivering but Louise wasn't taking the hint. The skunk moved back a few paces and resumed it's defensive position. Again Louise wasn't taking the hint.

I should point out here that while this train wreck in the making was unfolding, I was going out of my mind barking stern commands trying to call Louise back to me. Louise was very torn over investigating this curious animal and obeying my commands - she would start to come to me, then hesitate and head back only to stop again as I continued to get louder.

Throughout it all I think the only ones who were tense (or even aware of the dangers) were me and the skunk. Anyhow, with the crisis averted Louise and I were able to continue our walk - with the leash on.

This last picture is one I took last night while out a little earlier in the evening. Louise has a habit of saying hi to people on the park benches, just in case they happen to be eating something and are of the generous persuasion. Or can be persuaded into generosity. Or something. So long as food being passed to the cute dog is involved.