Bear's spring ride

I took Bear out for a ride around the neighborhood before the trees lost all their blossoms and happened upon this beautiful scene of pink petals covering the road.


The petals were falling from the trees like rain drops. You can see the petals on his back.


Puddles of petals.


Even the gutters were full of the rain of petals.

The cherry trees providing such a pretty scene.

Signs of growing old

Bear is 8 years old now. We got him in December of 2001 when he was 2 months old. He was the cutest puppy I have ever seen. Look at that CUTE face!!! His legs were short compared to his round body and he kind of had to waddle the first couple of weeks we had him. It didn't slow him down though! He was always a spitfire. He has always been full of mischeviousness and he does have a cute personality....unfortunately, it comes with a side of meanness when he feels it needs it.

Our first pic of Bear. Back then, he could fit on Adam's shoulder. I remember crying to Adam a couple weeks after getting him that I couldn't live for 15 years with that monster. He had already developed a mean streak that neither of us could control. He was super destructive and his little, sharp teeth made contact quite often.

Bear's first Christmas....it was a lot of work running to everyone and playing with wrapping paper, bows and ribbon. He spent the day at Barry and Lanette's with their dogs.

He could always sleep anywhere and in places that seem very uncomfortable to me. Shortly after this picture, Bear came down with kennel cough. He was miserable and couldn't breath so he just laid there day after day, coughing. It was so sad. It was then that I feel into his trap. He had me wrapped around his paw.

He got better and was back to his old ways. He has figured out that there's a treat in the jar and he was trying to figure out how to open the jar so he could help himself. The color on his face, ears and paws was growing out into his current color. I was sad to see it go. I really liked the coloring of his puppyhood. His ears are still a bit gray so he retained just a little of it just for me. ;o)

Any chance Bear has to get muddy, he takes it. I let him out one day and came out later to find him like this! He was so happy! (This is no ordinary mud, mind you...this is Georgia red clay that stains instantly. Can you say orange carpet??)He still likes to get muddy on occassion. In fact, I've had to give him a bath every few days recently since there was a puddle in the backyard. I finally dug a drainage ditch for it this weekend so it was drying out...but it's raining again so we'll see.

I've grown accustomed to living with Bear...as long as he's not biting me or one of the other dogs, I can deal with his moods pretty effectively. He has settled down some as he's grown older. He still doesn't like kids but can stand to be in the same room with them if they give him plenty of space. He still hates dogs and tries to chase them all down so he might show them who the alpha dog truly is. He hates getting his fur trimmed but no longer feels the need to bite my hand off when I take the pile of fur away from him, then eat as much as he can before I collect it again. (A behavior I never understood.) He has basically resigned himself to the fact that Tucker is here to stay and that he is no longer the sole owner of the rawhides and tennis balls. He still loves to run as much as I can manage to let him.

This is Bear after a bike ride in Wanship and his fill of snow...he was a happy boy!

But things are starting to change. He very rarely wants to play with his basketball these days (though some of that has to do with the awful yard). He doesn't really like spending a whole lot of time outside either. He almost always heads up to bed when I leave for work rather than jumping to go outside. He can only chase the tennis balls I toss for a few minutes before he has to lay down to rest. But the saddest change of all came just a few weeks after I decided Bear would break the world record for fastest bike ride with a dog. His rear legs started shaking when he really exerts himself. He is fine with my running speed but when we got out on the bike and he reaches 15-16 MPH, by the time we make it up to the top of the subdivision, his legs are shaking so badly. We rest until they stop and we finish our ride. I don't know if he realizes that they're shaking because he ran hard. He doesn't seem to care...he just keeps running fast.

Through all the ways he has hurt me, or Adam, or the other dogs, or the bad attitude he's shown to family and visitors I really do love him and I am very sad to have been reminded that his time is coming....it's still sometime off, I'm sure. But it's never an easy thing to be reminded of how short the time I will have with him (and my other dogs) is. I just hope that the shake remains a minor thing and that Bear will be able to run long intop his life and do the one thing that makes him happy.

Bear believes he can conquer anything...here, he's contemplating the best way to pull me and my bike up that hill on one of our last rides in Wanship.

I've decided against trying to break the record with Bear. It's just too much for him. But we do go out for rides still...I just have to make sure he doesn't go as fast as he'd like to and that he rests more often.

First timed run

On Wednesday, I took the dogs for a bike ride each before our group walk. The bike rides weren't long...a little over a mile each. But I was expecting it to take the edge off their energy. Guess what, it didn't! But I timed Bear. We got off to a good start, we rounded the corner a little slowly since a car was parked in the way and then got going up to speed again. We were doing fine as we climbed the hill (a little slower than the pace we needed to be doing) when a car drove by us and we had to move too close to a yard with a barking dog on a line in it. Bear stopped to check it out. He didn't charge it or anything, he justs stopped. But I got his attention pretty quickly. The car passed and I had to try to get going again while on an uphill. We finally got back up to speed. When all was said and done, we hit 1/4 mile at 1:16. We did another practice run on that ride but Bear was already tired so he wasn't really sprinting and we ended with a time of 1:19. 16+ seconds seems like a lot of time to shave off but given the right circumstances (flat course with no cars or dogs) we can kill that old record, I know it. I'm hoping I can take Bear somewhere flat this weekend to time him.

We're going to break a world record

I came across a post on a blog I check occassionally. It's http://site.thedogoutdoors.com/dogblog/. They have some good information from time to time. I saw a post about the fastest 1/4 mile biking with a dog. That pairs time was 1:00:03 for the 1/4 mile. I watched the video and I know Bear has a much faster pace than that dog's. I know we can beat this world record. So, I will have to find a good place for a 1/4 mile course. The rules are that he has to be in a safety restraint harness (his biking harness is the same one this guy uses), he has to be attached to the bike using a steel rod (they're talking about a walky dog contraption but I will have to see what I can make), and it has to be in cool temperature for the dog's safety and somewhere with little to no traffic. It has to be taped by a witness. I'm sure I can find a witness easily enough. :o) So soon, we will be world record holders. :o)
This is Bear on one of his first rides...I thought I was going to die because he was going so fast. He's only gotten faster from there.

Pure Passion: warning, lots of pics

One of the highlights of my day is when I take the dogs out for a walk...but I really prefer the run/rides with Bear and Jasmine. After we get back from our walks or runs, no matter how hard Bear is panting, he insists on going out with me so we can play with the basketball. If he does something he knows he shouldn't, I put the ball up where he can't reach and leave it there. He won't leave until the ball is back on the ground. I usually make him wait a minute to really let it sink in that I don't like what he did. Anyway, I love watching Bear chase the ball and jump for it over and over again. I really like trying to capture action shots of Bear...the pictures make me smile and laugh! So look at these pictures and tell me....have you ever been so passionate about something in your life?
Oh, and I love his ears right now...the fur is really getting long and I love the way they flap in the wind.

All four in the air.

I love this one of him falling back to Earth.

This has to be my favorite!!

Poison Sucker

Adam calls dogs poison suckers when he's sick. If a dog lays with you, they suck the poison out of you. The longer they stay, the more poison they suck. Stripe, his dog that died 2 weeks after I moved out there, laid with him for hours every day when he had cancer. That's why stripe died of cancer, you see (of course, it doesn't matter that every one of his dogs has died of cancer ultimately).

Adam woke up today not feeling too hot. He had the day off so he was going to go to church with me but since he really didn't get much sleep last night, he decided not to come. This evening, I gave him Bear to suck out his poison. Bear's good about laying with/on me when I'm sick but he doesn't really do the same for Adam. He did actually lay on Adam for about 30 minutes though so maybe he sucked enough poison to make a difference tomorrow. Adam has to wake up at 5 to do a printer install. I hope he gets enough sleep and that he's feeling better!!

The hypnotising squirell

Today, I walked to the back door and looked through the glass for the dogs. I was totally amazed by what I saw! Jack was sitting on one side of the tree while Jasmine was laying on the other side (Bear was inside with me). The amazing part was the squirell close enough to be snatched in someone's mouth yet the dogs weren't moving a muscle or barking despite it running from spot to spot. It must have been about 5 minutes of that...I have no idea how long it was going on before I started watching. The squirell went up into the branches and started flicking its tail around then came back down the trunk. It stopped just above Jack's head then catapulted itself off the tree onto the ground. I was thinking that the squirell was done for. The dogs gave chase but the squirell made it to the other tree and up the trunk before they were able to catch up. The looked up into the tree but they never once barked. It was the strangest display from the dogs I've ever seen. I wonder what that squirell did to them!?!

It was 7 years ago, this month that we got Bear. That means he is 7 years old. You would never know it by how active he still is! That shot of him was taken today. He's had a sore leg for a couple of days but he seems to be doing ok today.

Bear & Adam

Adam swithced jobs this week. The desk job he's had here has been driving him crazy so he talked to his old boss, Dave, and asked if he would take him back if a position opened up here in Boise. Dave said he would. As it turned out, Dave got someone on his team to switch positions with Adam. Adam had a great time working yesterday.

Adam and I have both been having a hard time sleeping lately. Adam came to bed a couple of nights ago right before I tried to change the number on my side to get more comfortable. It finished but I didn't feel a difference and Adam, who had gotten into bed by that point, noticed that it was changing his side. So we switched remotes and were able to sleep on our own numbers instead of each other's. I don't think I'm not the right number yet, but it's more comfortable than when he had control of mine.

(I don't want to be a bad mom so I have to let you know how Bear is doing too.) Yesterday, we didn't go for a walk because it was drizzling all day. At around 8 last night, he decided he'd better start speaking up and camped out beside the leashes and started whining. I always feel bad when he does that because I know that it's the funnest part of his life but it was already dark and cold and rainy so I tried distracting him. I wasn't too successful. I promised him we would go tomorrow (today) no matter what the weather was like. Today is cold and even wetter. I promised him and so I loaded them into the Yukon and we went to the mall. They have a huge parking lot that I can walk all three of them at the same time so we all went together. Once I got moving, I was warm enough. Somewhere on the walk, Bear got a big glob of grease on his head which spread to his ear and his side as the walk went on. When we got back home, I put him in the tub and gave him a bath. The gresase is still there but he needed a bath anyway.

Shopping bags

This morning I wentout to pick some more hawthorne berries. I picked for 3 hours and 15 minutes and got just under 5 pounds. I found a tree that wasn't nearly as big as most of the others and had more berries ripe then not. I was able to pick whole clusters instead of one by one. The down side to this tree, however, was that it had many more thorns and they were bigger than in the trees I was picking in yesterday. I have lots of little cuts on my hand that sting when I wash my hands. I went to move a branch and poked myself a good one in my index finger!

The wind was really picking up and gray clouds were moving in pretty quickly so I packed it up and called it a day. It never actually rained but we did get a pretty fierce thunderstorm that had Bear francticaly looking for a hiding place. He finally settled in in the cabinet under the sink. He stayed there well after the storm was over to make sure it was safe.

In the evening, I made a trip to Kimball Junction for some milk (and got a milkshake while I was there). I've been eyeing the reusable shopping bags. I keep telling myself that I'll make some and even come out ahead on the price if I use the $1/yd fabric at Walmart but that hasn't happened so I broke down and bought 7. I never remember to bring old plastic bags but I have this thing that if I pay for something, I'm more likely to make the effort to use it. Now I just have to make a habit of unloading the bags and taking them back to the car.