Preamble to a walk in the park

We had a small adventure last week when Louise was in the office. On our lunch break we went for a walk in the park by the Olympic Village as usual, but this time the tide was low and we were able to check out this semi-island part of the park that has been completed.

Of course, this first picture is not about that at all. It was taken on a different day altogether, and the cat perched above Louise is Sassy. They get along reasonably well, if by that one understands that Louise will sometimes chase after Sassy because the cat wandered too close to her food bowl. This in turn usually starts a fight between Louise and our other cat, Sophie. Sophie (not pictured here in part due to objections raised by Louise) has been known to act protectively toward Sassy, even when it isn't warranted.

But I digress. Louise and I had a fantastic walk and I got lots of pictures as she scrambled over rocks, ran across sandy beaches and hopped along wooded trails - all within about 500 square foot area. This island isn't really all that big, and when the tide is low a land bridge becomes accessible. Technically, it's no longer an island at that time, I know.

Anyway, I took lots of pictures, enough to stretch this into at least a couple posts. As usual, the hard part for me will be remembering enough about what happened in order to write something to go with the pictures.

Oh, and my wife got a new camera recently, so she has been taking some really nice pictures of Wheezie too. I'll see about getting some of those up soon as well.

This January feels like April

We are in the middle of the rainy season so that means our walks have generally been shorter. But today was warm so Louise and I set out despite the rain and toured the soggy neighborhood.

We did see a few other dogs out being walked, but none of her usual friends. There seems to be a lot of puppies in our community lately and well, Louise isn't a big fan of those. Specifically, she doesn't like puppies that don't have manners.

Still, she was pleasant to all we met, even if a bit aloof at times. This is of course preferable to the alternative of growling or snapping at a rowdy youngster. But as I said, there was none of that and the two of us had a pleasant stroll in the rain. I even let her read her P-mail off one of the fire hydrants, which she seemed to enjoy.

One thing about all this rain is that I try to time her visits to the office for the days that will be sunnier. This means she doesn't get into work as often. The current forecast is for the rain to break sometime around Tuesday, so if all goes well she will get her shift next week.

Food Coma

This is a leftover picture from New Year's Eve. We had enjoyed a lamb dinner and that always means that Louise gets to feast on freshly cooked lamb bones. It's good times all around. Anyway, just like us, she ate a lot and celebrated a lot and well, later in the evening we noticed Louise slipping into a little bit of a food coma.

Yes, I'm that horrible person who takes pictures of you when you are at your worst. Still, this wasn't really Louise suffering as much as it was Louise basking in the glow of having eaten her fill.

Visiting Daisy and Gretzky

Over the holiday we went over to visit with Bill and Colleen, friends of ours. They have two great dogs, Daisy and Gretzky. We were able to bring Louise with us, which is why I'm posting about it here.

Luckily for us, Louise has already met Daisy and Gretzky, so we didn't have any real issues with the re-introduction. Having said that, Gretzky has a habit of sneaking bites of food from the other dog's food bowls and well, that wasn't the sort of thing that would put him in Louise's good graces. Any time her food bowl was down, Louise had to sit guard to ensure it was safe from Gretzky.

However, Gretzky is talented. He knows how to wait for a commotion, or distraction. According to Bill, he's a master at this. The master did score once on Louise's bowl, but not without notice. We fully expected Louise to launch into a full on attack over this, but instead she just resumed her guard.

Which was good. We commended Louise over her restraint. Still, we had a good visit with our friends, and got to see their little baby girl too which was a lot of fun. Louise likes these little adventures as they give her something different to do. Of course, with a change in her routine comes a drastic increase in her activity and well, this would ultimately have a toll.

Indeed it did. Louise was pretty tuckered out the next day and really wasn't interested in doing much other than taking a nap for about 75% of the day. Still, her spirits were up and it was certainly worth it in my eyes. Thanks again Bill and Colleen, for having us over. All three of us had a pretty good time and we can't wait to see you again in the summer.

Sleepy Santa Pug

Okay, this is a bit overdue but here we are. Louise has had to endure lots of rain this past month but now that the holidays are upon us she is starting to perk up.

We put up two trees this year, on opposite ends of our book case. Normally, we have a pet bed in each of those spots, so they had to be moved. In Louise's case though, her bed did not move very far at all, and she ends up sleeping just under the tree. Luckily, she hasn't messed with the ornaments too much so far - the worst that has happened is that she has brushed past them while getting set to curl up on her bed. (Louise tends to circle around her sleeping spot a couple times.)

It just happened that we were home for the holiday this year and I think the pets were pretty happy about that. It means less time being left to guard the house without us. Louise was pretty relaxed, in fact she hasn't wanted to move from the sofa all day.

Well, I need to wrap this up - Louise has started to stir and is looking to go out - right on schedule. Have a happy holiday season everybody and we look forward to posting more in the new year!

First Snow of the season

They have been taunting us with snow in the forecast all week and I basically refused to accept it until the snow actually started to fall. Holly and I were returning home from eating dinner when some light flurries started up. This wasn't enough to inspire Louise to go for much of a walk though. What she noticed more was that it was basically cold and wet, and it was warm and dry in the house. She did her business and wanted to hustle back to the condo.

Of course, this was precisely what I had in mind too, so we agreed to have as brief a walk as necessary.

On the next morning Louise and I had a vastly different experience. There was about an inch or two of heavy, wet snow. This of course made everything on the ground twice as interesting and Louise had a ball. After she tinkles she sometimes likes to kick the dirt up a bit, and this is especially true with snow. Sorry for the posterior shot but well, I felt it was worth it to showcase the flying snow in action.

The snow continued to melt through the day but wasn't completely gone by the time temperatures started to drop again so now it's starting to freeze. It will have an entirely different, and less pleasant character by tomorrow morning.

November Wind Storm

I took this photo on the weekend, when Louise and I went for a longer walk one morning. We went down to the marina in Coal Harbour and despite it being very overcast, we had a pretty good time of it.

Then, last night we were out for a walk and WOW, was it windy! Such a contrast to the quiet mistiness from the weekend, the winds were gusting up as high as 80 kph. It didn't rain very much or very hard while we were out walking (luckily) but the wind blew most of the leaves off the trees. It was kind of fun too, as it was not overly cold. Louise enjoyed having her little ears flapping in the wind and insisted on walking down to English Bay to see the waves crashing in.

Lamb bone and a visit to the Vet

Just look at that face.

Holly picked up some lamb and one of the side benefits is that it usually has a bone suitable for Louise. This is always a highlight for her and she gets quite excited. I get quite excited too, because Holly is an excellent cook and as always, the lamb was very tasty.

I know that last picture is a little out of focus, but I really like the expression on Louise's face, which is why I decided to go with it anyway. She settled in on her pet bed and went to work on it. The bone kept her busy for the rest of the night but there was still most of the bone left over by bed time.

The other thing that happened recently was our annual visit to the vet. I guess it wasn't really the annual one, since we arrived months after the reminder notice was sent out. Still, better to be late than to have never showed up at all. We brought all three pets in for their shots and Louise went first.

It was pretty obvious that she remembered the vet and what that experience involved. She was not interested in being anywhere near him. When we placed her on the examination table she would move to the far edge - away from Dr. Sandhu. She was squirming so much that we had to hold her tight just for him to use the stethoscope on her chest. Louise remembered that this was where needles were involved.

Eventually we got her shots done (she had 3) and then we brought her back into the lobby while we looked after our two cats. Louise was cool as a cucumber and relaxed on one of the chairs while the cats were being dealt with. From there it was home, where all three animals slept off the medications for the night.