Hot summer walks

Summer weather is here and we are all enjoying it to the max. Luckily for Louise, it doesn't really get scorching hot in Vancouver, at least not downtown. Even on the warmest of days we seem to be able to find a cool breeze, so she is still very enthused to go out on multiple walks.

Last Wednesday we were at work and I happened to be chatting with my niece Sarah. I said I would share some photos with her from our lunch walk and I did, and here is another one from that day. Now fast forward to the weekend and you see us down by the beach again. At this time of the year the Downtown areas are extra busy with tourists so we sometimes get a lot of questions. Louise is sometimes into it, enjoying the attention and at other times, just not wanting to be bothered. One can not really tell ahead of time how she will react at first but generally if she is having a good day, the whole day goes well.

I took the third photo over at the church next to our house. It has been for sale for a couple months now and the garden doesn't seem to be as closely groomed as before. Volunteers are still looking after things, but it is taking on a 'vacant' character. Louise prefers the new feel to the area as longer grass is something of a luxury for her. She's taking a good sniff of something I prefer to remain ignorant of in this photo, let's pretend she's smelling buttercups or something.

That brings us to the walk we took this evening, where we met this little girl and her family walking along the seawall at Coal Harbour. She noticed Louise back on Denman street, and we happened to be walking the same way so she had some time to get used to Louise. She was quietly watching from afar until just after this photo when I indicated to her papa that Louise was friendly and would be no trouble. He laughed and said 'she isn't', nodding toward his daughter.

She was very nervous when he told her (in Spanish) that she could pet Louise. With one little finger she cautiously touched Louise just above her tail so softly that Louise barely noticed. Louise has been, and is always, fantastic with children, be they timid or boisterous. She just stood relaxed and let the child have her encounter, careful not to do anything to startle her.

Yeah, we got a great dog. Nobody can tell me different.

Recovery walk

Louise has become my personal trainer. Since I pulled my back, I have been laying about the house, not moving around a lot. This is not really the best course of action for me, as I am supposed to keep moving as much as I can. This is where Louise is determined to help. She all but refuses to go for a walk if I happen to be home, unless I attend. Which, given the circumstances, is just the motivation I need to get my broken butt up and moving.

But it makes for slow, short walks.

Still, between that and some late night strolls I have been taking with Holly, my back does seem to be getting stronger again.

So what is a pug to do when her walking partner isn't at full speed? Goof around, mostly. I was feeling a bit better this morning so I happened to grab my camera on our walk. She was in the perfect mood to mug for the camera and make the most of the sunshine.

We wandered around the West End, alternating between sunny and shaded streets, to give Louise time to cool off, but I'm not sure if it was needed or not. We wandered over to Barclay park, mostly because it's close by (I was in no mood to stray too far and then have my back wear out again) but also because Louise was off-leash so I was picking areas that I knew would have very little car traffic.

Of course now we are back home and Louise is down for the count with her daily nap. I honestly don't know how she can sleep as much as she does - but she seems to be happy so who am I to complain. Gives me time to do my back stretches and post to the blog.

That's a good thing, by the way. What has gone unsaid until now is that while I recover, Louise is getting very, very well rested. I expect she will walk the socks off of me sometime soon, just as soon as I can handle it.

Shoe Shoppin' and Splish-Splashin'

Okay, this should be a fun post. I have quite a few good photos to choose from, like this one here where Louise is with us as we ducked into a shoe store to check a sale price. The photo looks to me like it is ripe for a caption but maybe that's just me. I liked how the light was reflecting off the leather making it all shiny. It just looks to me like she is asking permission for a pair, when that was totally not what was happening at that moment.

As you know, Louise tends to get a bath on 'beach days'. We sometimes work that the other way around, where she gets to go to the beach on 'bath days'. On this day Louise and I happened to arrive at the beach right around sunset, which made for some pretty good photo opportunities. It didn't take much coaxing for her to run the length of the beach and back. Once she was off, she had a good old time messing about in the water. We even tried playing fetch with some old mussel shells, which never got returned because they would sink and she would lose track of where they went. But the fun was in the chasing and not in the returning, so that was ok. She had a good time romping and splashing and it was another walk done. Bath time came later and it took two rinses because I thought it was a good idea to use a stinky used pet towel from before. Unfortunately this left Louise smelling worse than when we started, so the re-do was in order.

I took a little heat for that one. This last photo was taken the other day when we found ourselves back out 'in the country' as we like to say, visiting our friends Bill and Colleen. You might remember that they own a dog named Daisy. Another friend of theirs was there with her dog, a pug named Lilly.

All three dogs were well behaved but I couldn't help but notice how different each was from the other. Lilly was about six thousand times more energetic than Louise or Daisy. Daisy just tried to stay out of the pug's way most of the night, looking for consolation from the other house guests. Louise tried bossing the other two dogs around and made it her life's goal to coax some appetizers from everyone there. Okay wait, the dogs weren't all that different from each other - they were all pulling that stunt where they would be as cute as possible in hopes of being rewarded with food.

I didn't get a good picture of Daisy that night, but here's a shot of Lilly. She was a little charmer, that's for sure. Oh and by the way, Louise is on the welcome mat because she needed a bathroom break and then on the way in decided to hang out on the porch where it was cooler.

Happy Canada Day!

Ok, this post is a little premature, since we haven't yet set out to celebrate the holiday proper. However, it's been a while since I posted last and I do have a few pictures to put up, so here we go:

Last year we went to Granville Island to participate in the festivities - this year we will probably just stick closer to Robson street since we learned that the same band will be playing there again this year. We really enjoyed them last time, so it should be fun. The band is called Soulstream and they kept the funk up last year so we are hoping for more of the same. Once again, we will be breaking out the doggie stroller to help with crowd control - we don't want little Wheezie getting stepped on!

Another change from last year is they are giving away free ice cream instead of free cake. While I'm happy about this, Holly is a little disappointed - she likes her cake! It's not a deal breaker though, we will enjoy the ice cream just the same.

This will be Louise's chance to celebrate with the crowds - we were out earlier for our morning walk along the seawall, which she enjoyed, but it was quite windy - I had to be careful not to get into the sandy parts of the beach as we didn't want blowing sand to get in her eyes. Other than that, it's pretty much perfect pug weather - sunny and warm, but a cool breeze to keep a pug comfortable.

Happy Canada Day, pug lovers!

Under the Gun

See this dog? She means business. After putting up such a long blog post on my other site last night, I'm under the gun to at least update her site now. She's sitting on the sofa just staring at me.

Or maybe that's snoring. It's hard to tell right now.

Either way, it has been a while since I posted. I was away this past weekend on my bike and we were worried that Louise would be upset with me not coming home. Apparently this was NOT the case at all. Seems she preferred the extra space on the bed and wasn't perturbed in the slightest. Of course, when I finally did return home she was overly excited to see me - but again, that may be attributed to the fact that she was indoors for about nine hours and was just ready to get outside. But I like to think that she missed me, at least a little.

Since I have been back, our walks have been a lot shorter. This has been my fault as my legs are still sore, but Louise has been a good sport about it. I'm feeling better each day, so tonight's walk should be back to normal. Oh, and of course tomorrow is a day at the office, so we will see who tires out whom.

One more thing: To all of you who contributed donations to my fund raising effort. I had a fantastic experience riding to Seattle last weekend and I know the money raised will make a real difference in people's lives. Thank you.

No Car Day at the Beach

Today was No Car Day in Vancouver, but I'm not going to post about that right now. I will, in a few days, don't worry. The reason is because after all the excitement, Louise and I went to the BEACH. It's now warm enough and we had already determined that it should be a good night for a bath, so there would be no harm in letting her have her fun.

And fun is exactly what she had.

We were lucky to find a spot that was pretty empty today - fine weather on a weekend tends to bring the suburbanites into town and this weekend was no exception. The place was pretty busy. But, the sun was slowly setting so I am sure that the bulk of the people had already started to head on home. This was perfect for us as it meant Louise could explore without any interruptions.

Lately she hasn't been thrilled with the notion of having a camera pointed her way but after some time in the ocean she was in the mood. At one point the silly dog wanted to come up and sniff the camera, for no other reason other than she was happy, little tail wagging. Look closely and you will see me reflected in her eyes.

I like the days where we get to spend a little extra time with Louise, just goofing around and having fun. Judging by the way she is curled up on Holly's lap, snoring away after being dried off, I think that Louise likes these days too.

Here is a quick video I took as Louise ran up and down the beach:

Thanks for putting water out!

The last little while has been fantastic weather. Anytime this is true, we have to be a little cautious over when and how long we walk Louise. She does mind the heat. So far we have been able to get around this by concentrating her time out around mornings and evenings. But when a pug has to go, a pug has to go. Sometimes, waiting until the sun sets is just not feasible. A dog crossing her legs is not a pretty sight to see at all.

So we sometimes head out for a stroll in the middle of the day. It's still only Vancouver weather so really it's not that hot out. Besides, many people leave dog bowls filled with water out for passing dogs. We know of one at the local fire hall and another at a restaurant called Don Guacamole's. Sadly, as we headed past Don's we learned that they are not always consistent with the water. We arrived today and discovered it wasn't there. Louise's tail dropped immediately and she lost the will to continue. I had to carry her an extra block to get to a local aromatherapy store that also leaves water outside. Once refreshed, all was good in the world again.

Can it be Friday now?

We were out for a walk late last night, around 10:30 pm or so. I was in shorts and a tee-shirt and didn't feel the slightest chill in the air. We were out later in part because any earlier would have been warmer than what Louise finds to be comfortable. Judging by her mood, she was pretty happy with the decision.

Okay, so take a look at the bench in the second photo. Louise fails the graffiti test on both counts since she is not only a dog, but of a Chinese breed. At least they used correct spelling I suppose. I was hoping to think of something witty to say about it, but really at the time it just made me think 'hmm.'

It is also becoming quite clear that Louise doesn't only like to bark at cars, but also at boats. Well specifically the ones with engines. I think it's the noise they generate or something. At any rate, she finds them quite fascinating when we are down by the water and will often run to the edge of the seawall to get a better look.

Whatever she likes, I say. At least she can't get into trouble with boats since she refuses to enter water deeper than her chin. It gives her a chance to interact with something different and she is having fun. Isn't that what dog walks are supposed to be for?