A Great Hike

It was a beautiful day so Reese and I went on a hike. We walked along the trails by the river. When we got to boat put in area that isn't used any longer Reese decided to try out the water. She doesn't really care for waves. They are too scary. She loves her pool, loves the hose, the sprinkler, heck she even likes the bathtub. But waves...whoa, those are scary. But today the water was pretty calm not many boats and so it was time to tip toe in and low and behold it wasn't so bad. She even chased a couple of sticks that I threw in. I didn't remember I had the camera on my cell phone until she had almost had enough. These pics are on the edge of shore, and not very good hence the cell phone.


It wasn't until we got home tonight that I realized that today was my first Golden Jessie's birthday. Jessie loved the water, it didn't matter, lake, river, pool she was in. On Jessie's birthdays we always tried to do something special like go for a hike in our favorite woods by a lake. Of course she would always plunge into the lake a few times while we were there. I thought it was kind of interesting that today was the day that Reese decided it was okay to put all four feet in the water and go in deep enough to get her belly wet. Perhaps she had a little nudging from a fur-angel.

Reese's New Trick

Reese has been learning a new trick, well, I guess it is more of a new behavior. It's not that I really think this behavior will come in handy some day. She isn't getting Scuba certified any time soon. Actually, people sometimes ask why I teach her these things, why not just teach good manners and leave it at that. We do work on those things but learning a trick is not really about the trick, but about the learning process. Bonding with each other and me learning how she learns and her learning how to learn - if something she does doesn't work, try something else and see if that works. Tricks teach me how to be a better teacher and they teach Reese how to learn.

Many of the tricks she does also teach her body awareness and strengthen and stretch her muscles so that they will be conditioned and this will help prevent injuries. This one doesn't do that but it is fun. So here it is, she learned this in three very short sessions.

Here are a few pictures of her playing with Clifford.