Back Again!

Ah, summer 'vacation!' Vacated has free time, vacation has lazy warm afternoons and relaxing mornings...yeah, we've been busy and you, my poor readers, have suffered a probably much-needed break from my electronic ramblings. But, work must resume!

Sunday, June...last Sunday in June (yes, I'm too lazy to look it up or do the math).

Church, full service this time. Prada behaved wonderfully and received many accolades. Her fanclub continues to grow exponentially. I have discovered that everywhere we go it is imperative that we be accosted by anyone who owns/has owned a shepherd, knows a shepherd owner, or has seen a shepherd. It is a law of nature. What will be, will be. That afternoon my friend and I went to World Beat Festival at the riverfront park, a multicultural music and food and crafts event. Prada cleared paths and sniffed razor-sharp obsidion arrowheads and listened to Japanese drum music and watched my friend and I spar some more with long stems of annis (forgive the incorrect spelling, it's the stuff licorice is flavored with).

Monday, the day after the last Sunday in June (that took some figuring out, my brain hurts :P )

Mostly a relaxing day, Prada got to observe pool activity as my friend and I cooled off after a long walk in the surrounding countryside with a dip in our in-ground pool. She didn't have the lifeguard reaction and didn't seem interested in playing at all so I'm confident that lap-swimming at my school's fitness center won't be an issue.

Tuesday, June 30th (yes, I actually did the math (counting backwards from the 4th...))

Big day! Prada's first camping trip! Across the mountains to the high desert area my mother, friend, and I took Prada yurting. Yurting? Is that a verb? About as valid as googling and wiki'ing, I guess...but I digress. Yurting is considered 'cityslicker' camping by most people but it's ideal for traveling with a dog guide because it gives a contained space where we can play and shuts out some of the night noises that might set her off. It was also warmer at night, which is a good thing when camping in the desert.  And it kept Prada a little cleaner. She still managed to get herself dusty every ten minutes or so but...c'est la vie, we're camping. I'll summarize the camping trip into one day's section and then call it off for the night and post more tomorrow evening (hopefully).

Tuesday evening we drove into Bend to let Prada stretch her legs a bit, wandered around downtown by the river a ways. Prada was quite fascinated by geese out on the river. mesmerized. "Why are there animals floating on the water?" The next day we hiked up through the obsidian flows, hillsides covered entirely in glassed rock. Absolutely stunning! Prada wore her little boots to protect her paws from the sharp rock, and complained almost the whole way about it. We discovered that the rough obsidian trails aren't the best for working dogs, and I think I should have heeled her through most of that. The trail was hard to find at times and it was impossible for her to anticipate what I would trip on or run into. I don't think a lot of hardcore offroading is in our near future but I won't give it up. Maybe give it a year or so for the two of us to learn each others' body language and figure out some systems before we give it another go.

We drove up to Paulina Peak and hiked around there for a bit, then that evening we drove into Sisters to do another last walk-around to tire the puppy out so she'd sleep better. We brought the hard crate for her to sleep in and I discovered that packing a minivan with a hard crate in it for storage purposes makes fitting everything in work very nicely. I haven't purchased the soft crate yet, can't decide if I want to wait and buy that when I go back to school so I don't have to ship it. Once again her eating habits suffered but as soon as we got home the next day they went right back to normal.
(for those of you who don't know what yurts are, they're Mongolian tent-like structures built on lattice frames that rest about three feet off the ground.  We use them in Oregon because we like camping, but it rains most of the year so a good portion of our camping season leaves us with soggy earth.  Having the yurts, though, makes camping season nearly year-round!)

Camping, day #3 (July 2nd).
We hiked most of the way up Black Butte after packing everything up. Black Butte is sort of on the way home so it made sense to break camp and then go hiking. At first I had Prada wearing her boots again but the trail was mostly sand and a few roots and larger rocks so I took them off. It was a really hot day, a steep climb, and a long one. At one point a large log crossed the trail and on the way up Prada and I went boony-crashing around it but on the way back we just climbed (well I climbed, she jumped) over it). After we crossed the log on the way up we hiked a bit farther, then Prada lay down in the trail. -flop- "I'm done, mom." We'd stopped a couple of times already for water, and since I'd brought her collapsible water bowl Prada wasn't dehydrated, it was just long and steep and hot so I decided to take her back down and not risk heat exhaustion. My mom and friend didn't top the butte, deciding that a trip in to Sisters to the Snocap Cafe for ice cream was more important. After a lengthy drive back over the pass we got home, got cleaned up, and Prada's eating habits returned to normal. Yay!

Ok, that's enough for one post, I think. I really hope to have y'all all caught up by this Saturday but I think I've said something like that before and here we are...anyway, I'm trying!
9Prada has never laid down in a trail or on a route like she did on Black Butte.  I've hiked that trail several times before and it's a really otugh one, VERY steep.  With her thick coat, she just decided she really didn't want to finish it and I don't blame her!)