Skateboarding Pug?

Heh. Last night while Louise and I were out for our walk, we met some of the local kids. They had been skateboarding, but had to stop to say hi to Louise. (I am generally ignored.) After a few minutes of petting the dog, one asked if she was able to skateboard. I said 'let's find out!' and put her on the board.

So long as it was stationary, she was ok. But once it started to move she would hop off. I guess it isn't her favorite mode of transportation. But still, the boys thought it was fun and one suggested that it would be 'pretty cool if she could do an 'ollie.' I just agreed with him, since I only had a vague idea of what he was talking about.

Please don't get the impression that I need the term explained to me.

Electrical storm

On our morning walk I had to take a detour and stop at the local store. This was because Louise was quickly expiring due to the heat. After soaking her thoroughly and giving her some ice water to drink, I had to call my wife to come pick us up in the truck, as there was no way Louise would make it up the hill in this heat. Once home, Louise slept most of the day away inside (with air conditioning ON) so we went to the non-dog beach to see the Dragon Boat races.

This meant I owed Louise one heck of a walk that night. As luck would have it, by the time I was ready to walk the dog, the clouds had rolled in and we had one of the largest electrical storms I can remember. Luckily, things were happening off in the distance while we were in exposed areas like the dog park, but were much more active as we got closer to home. It wasn't raining heavily and was definately very humid. It was an interesting night though, as for once, it seemed that almost everybody was out on their balcony watching the lightning. Several people were taking pictures, including one of the guys I work with. So no more stock photos, this one is the real deal, taken in front of his house last night. Thanks for the picture, Paul. It turned out really well.

Drive-by barkings and a new puppy in the complex

This morning as I left to bike into work, I heard some awful barking. On investigation I discovered that someone was taking his dog for a drive, letting him bark at various things, be it people at the bus stop, other cars, etc. He didn't seem to have any particular destination, as he just went up a dead end street, turned around and slowly proceeded back down. (Dog barking the whole time.)

But that was just this morning. A few days ago we discovered that there is another dog in our condo complex - a Basset hound, of all things. His name is Barkley and he certainly is friendly enough. He played with Louise for a while - he's just the right speed for her - playful, but not too fast. Louise hopes to see more of Barkley.

Speaking of puppies, we encountered another one while at the dog park yesterday. This one was a Blue Heeler/Shepherd/Lab mix, and was less than a year old, so it had lots of spunk. On top of that, it was about four times as fast as Louise. She had trouble keeping up, but that didn't stop her from trying. After about twenty minutes I had to pull her out and head home. Not that she wanted to, but I could tell she was starting to get exhausted.

Of course, this meant she settled down very easily when we got home, which meant we could go out for dinner without hearing any protests from Louise. That's what I call a win-win situation.

Walking in the rain

The other night on our walk, I tried to time it so that we were out between rain showers. Well, my timing was not so good, because both Louise and I got completely soaked after about 5 minutes outside. Luckily, it was also a warm night, so it didn't really bother us. In fact, it seemed to invigorate Louise, who had more energy when walking up the hill.

Last night's walk had better weather and we met up with Jacks at the dogpark. I'm not sure what kind of dog Jacks is, but he sort of looks like a German Shepherd, but with much longer, shaggier hair. The hair also has red streaks and looks like it might be teased. I'm pretty sure it's all natural, and Jacks is friendly enough so Louise doesn't tease him much. Besides, she's just happy to run around with him for a few minutes. It's not every day that she can run with the big dogs. Sorry, I couldn't resist typing that one.

Anyway, with the weekend upon us, I'm pretty sure that we will try to make it to the lake again, especially if the weather holds up and stays warm. I'll posta detailed report of anything interesting that happens.

Somebody was having a good old time

I'm pretty sure that Louise had a good weekend. With Saturday being Canada Day, we had her out that night to see the fireworks. Last year she saw some fireworks but didn't really understand what was going on. This year was a little different - when the show got started, I held up Louise so she could see what was going on over the trees. This is because we were able to watch them from just outside our place, without having to drive anywhere.

She didn't really notice them at first (which is kind of understandable, since fireworks shows in Canada do tend to be much smaller than shows in the US) so we started playing a game with her where we would 'bark' when we heard the explosions. It didn't take her very long to join in, at first with the puggy 'lazy half bark' and then with more and more enthusiasm as the show went on. About halfway through the show, she noticed the fireworks and from then on, she was bravely barking at these strange things in the sky. It was entertainment for the whole family.

Then on Sunday, it was back to the lake. More good times, and the water was very nice. The walk to the beach seemed shorter than we remembered and Louise must have met about twenty other dogs. I think she slept better than all of us that night.