Growing Pickles

Ithaca in the Fall

2012-10-18T18:48:00.001-06:00

Pickles is adjusting to his new life in Ithaca, NY. He has been apple picking twice. Fallen apples make great fetching toys, and he likes playing with the resident dogs, especially Jasper.

We often go to the Ellis Hollow Community Center down the road from our house where there is a giant field perfect for playing Frisbee, a play ground with slides and tunnels, and woods with squirrels to chase. Unfortunately, we have to de-tick him multiple times a day. Hopefully, winter will kill all the awful ticks.

Giddy-Up

2011-11-22T17:48:00.000-07:00

We finally got around to buying Pickles some booties to keep the ice balls out from between his toes and to save his paw pads when we're on rough rocks. Like all dogs wearing booties for the first time, he galloped around like a marionette. This is actually the 2nd or 3rd time he wore them so he was mildly used to them. His feet still had minds of their own though.

Guinn Mountain Hut

2011-11-22T17:46:00.000-07:00

Several weekends ago, Pickles, Lily, Mark, and I hiked up to Guinn Mountain Hut near Eldora to check it out as a possible overnight destination. It was a great hike and a neat little cabin so the next weekend we hiked up with a bunch of friends. Pickles and Lily had so much fun playing in the snow, chasing sledders down the hill (Pickles barking ferociously), and snuggling up in the cabin. Unfortunately, after Dec. 1, dogs are no longer allowed due to the need to melt snow for water.

View of the cabin on our scouting trip, you can barely see the loft up above

Pickles sporting his new backpack compliments of Talia. Thanks!

Everyone getting ready to leave the cabin

There was a strong wind storm over night and lots of huge trees had fallen in the trail

R&R sledding their way down

The top of a tree that blew off in the storm; we took it home with us for a Christmas tree

Mousey

2011-11-22T17:34:00.000-07:00

We often have mice getting into our chicken food. Lily has been quite helpful in catching them for us. I think she's caught a total of three. Here's a real little baby one that she caught and we let her and Pickles play with it for a bit. Pickles was super gentle with it, nudging it with his nose and licking it. While Lily didn't actually kill it, I'm not sure if rolling on it is considered gentle.

Trick or Treat

2011-10-31T19:32:00.000-06:00

We had a very doggy Halloween at our house this year.

We carved a scary dog face in our pumpkin

Pickles dressed up at a teenage mutin ninja turtle

But he didn't like wearing his ninja mask so we let him just be a regular turtle


Lily wore green to be supportive of Pickles turtle theme and the environment. She says "Happy HaaWooWeen" to her family.

It's already 7:30pm, and we've only had three Trick-or-Treaters, one of which was our neighbor; she was dressed as tinker bell and thought Pickles costume was super silly.

Apples

2011-10-31T19:31:00.000-06:00

Despite the abundance of apple trees in Boulder, there is only one you-pick apple orchard this side of Grand Junction , and you have to make reservations to pick at that orchard. For the past two years, we have been picking apples from some half wild trees along the bike path near our house. They're small apples, and many have rotten cores, but if you slicer peeler corer them, there really aren't that many bad spots left to cut out. They are a wonderful variety, something similar to my favorite Empire Apple: sour and crunchy. With no other options, we decided to return to our bike path you-pick trees.

Pickles got to come this time, but I'm not sure if he'll get invited back next time. First we have to jump over the creek and then climb up a 3ft vertical rock wall to get to a little ledge between fence and creek that has the trees on it. It took an acrobatic hand-off to get Pickles up onto the ledge without either of us falling into the creek. Once there we tied him up and climbed the tree to pick. Apparently, he never learned that it's okay for people to climb trees because he started his pitiful don't abandon me crying. Something like when he was 2 months old and left alone in his crate. We were only 10ft away from him and usually he is fine being tied up if we are within sight. Maybe he was just looking out for our well-being afraid one of us would fall out of the tree.

Despite his less than perfect behavior, we picked a ton of apples in less than 20 minutes and took them home to process. We ended up with about 9 pints of apple pie filling, 3 quarts of apple sauce, and 3 quarts of sliced apples. All free.

Mark is peeling and coring the apples while Pickles hides under the table tasting the peels.

Fall Aspen

2011-10-31T19:30:00.001-06:00

Lily and Daisy were both visiting this past weekend so we had 3 dogs. We took them down into Lost Creek Wilderness on the Ben Tyler trail to see the aspen and run wild. The trees were amazing, the weather was great, and the dogs were pretty well behaved.

Weekend With Roscoe

2011-10-31T19:30:00.000-06:00

Lauren and Kirk went to California a week past, so we got to watch Roscoe. Pickles was overjoyed. We spent a lot of time at the playground down the street where there boys wore their matching harnesses and played on the playground.

Here they are playing on the soccer field next to the playground while Mark flies his kite. Pickles has gotten quite vicious with his playing. We hope he doesn't scare all his friends off.

And here is Pickles showing off.

Wyoming Medicine Bow Peak Hike

2011-09-19T20:13:00.001-06:00

Day 2, Sunday, we climbed Medicine Bow Peak and looped back to Lewis Lake Trail head.

Wyoming Lakes Hike

2011-09-19T19:59:00.000-06:00

Last weekend, we took Pickles north to Wyoming for some epic hiking adventures. Colin, Kristen, Talia, Rebecca, Russell, and Lily all came with us. It was absolutely beautiful hiking and Pickles ran himself ragged.

Pickles looking back over the back seat through the trunk. He got to ride in the backseat with Talia.

A beautiful beginning

The dogs following Russell across a meadow

It being the snowy range, there were lots of large snowfields left over still. Pickles and Lily play down by the water.

Stopping for a drink at one of the many stream crossings.

Rock hopping

Pickles and Lily racing down a snowfield

Medicine Bow Peak

Lily and Pickles wading in a lake.

Resting at the campsite after a long day of hiking

Flattops Wilderness

2011-09-07T19:04:00.000-06:00

This past weekend, we took Pickles hiking and camping up in the flattops wilderness south west of Steamboat Springs. Our goal was hiking across Devil's Causeway, a 5ft wide ridge with thousand foot drops on both sides.

Talia came with us!

Saturday, we did a tour de lakes almost all off trail following along at the base of the cliffs. Sunday we hiked in reverse along the same circle but on the top of the mountain. We dump camped at the Horseshoe Campground nearby Saturday night. This was an amazingly beautiful area. We saw very few people and true to its name the mountains were flat. We didn't gain much elevation on either hike.

Pickles went swimming in some of the lakes to cool off

He dries surprisingly fast after exiting the lake with 10lbs of water in his coat

After accidentally jumping head first into a stream that was buried under some tall grasses, Pickles found a soft dry mound of dirt and did his crazy doggy dance.

There were still quite a few flowers including these columbine

There was one steep traverse on our off-trail hike; Pickles was not very cautious running full speed across the slope

Back at the campsite, Pickles and Mark are kissing in the hammock

Dinner was baked potatoes, grilled cherry tomatoes, corn, and asparagus. Pickles had dried venison and sweet potatoes

Climbing up towards the causeway on Sunday

Talia crossing the causeway. Pickles was fully harnessed and leashed for this part.

Up on top, Pickles found several large snowfields and played fetch with an ice chunk. His feet turned bright pink from the bacteria on the snow (watermelon snow).


We stopped for a nap on Sunday at Mosquito lake and were treated to a rare moose viewing.

The end of the day, hiking back past Stillwater Reservoir

Since we were car camping, Pickles brought his lounge chair. He was one tired pup.

Rollins Pass

2011-09-02T19:10:00.000-06:00

Saturday, August 27 we took Pickles on the hike of a lifetime. We started by attempting to drive up to Rollins Pass from the east side. We'd never been past the Moffat tunnel and didn't know what the road would be like. Turns out it is quite a long way (1.5 hours) of really really rocky slow road. Nothing that really needed high clearance but enough rocks that you didn't want to go more than 5 mph. After the first 30 minutes we started debating whether it was worth it to keep going, but stuck to it. Eventually we came out above treeline, still on the road, with the most gorgeous views. There were some awesome campsites along the side as we passed Yankee Doodle lake which continued till we reached the end of the road.

There were other cars parked at this point so we decided to stop driving and start hiking. We were up really early so we didn't see anyone on the road except people at their campsites just waking up. On the drive down we passed a lot of cars and bikes.

Pretty soon after we started hiking there was a giant snow drift along the road and Pickles went crazy. Something about snow makes dogs wild.

Shortly thereafter we got to the needle eye tunnel which is closed. There was a man in his dirt bike outfit looking through the tunnel that spooked Pickles (we had passed this guy earlier and Pickles was nothing but friendly). He barked a lot until we finally got close enough that he could smell the guy.

We climbed up over the tunnel and took the wagon road up over the hill towards the pass. When we arrived a the pass we realized there was an easier old rail road bed route that didn't gain any elevation from the tunnel (we took this on the way back). From the pass we decided to drop down to King Lake in Indian Peaks instead of heading up farther onto the High Lonesome trail. You can see King Lake below in the picture.

Pickles saw the snow field down the hill and started doing laps; he ran down the hill to the snow sprinted across it and then circled back up to us, seeing that we hadn't moved yet he did it again. It was a pretty far ways down and I think he ran at least 4 laps.

King Lake was beautiful. We stopped for lunch and Pickles went wading.

After King Lake we decided to continue on to Bob and Betty Lakes. These are at about the same elevation as King but you have to go down and back up to get to them. The wild flowers are amazing in this area.


One the way we found the waterfall we had seen from the wagon road.

Looking from the wagon road towards King Lake and Bob and Betty Lakes (see the waterfall).

At the waterfall, the railroad bed is visible across the valley.

On our way to Bob Lake looking back towards Rollins Pass, we arrived at the pass from the left.

By the time we reached Bob Lake the clouds were starting to gather and we had a long way back above treeline so we skipped Betty Lake. Pickles was hot and trying to swim, but the bank was real steep and he couldn't figure out how to get in. Finally, I just grabbed his harness and dropped him in. He paddled around in little circles, loving it, before he climbed out.

Bob Lake.

When we got back to the pass, a couple of guys had set up a rail in the snowfield and were snowboarding. There was a pretty steep drop just to the right of them where the snowfield dropped over the edge, but I guess the snow was soft enough they could stop themselves easily.

We then crossed some awesome railroad trestles on our alternative route back. They were pretty exposed so we put Pickles on a leash.

We made it back to the car at 2pm, 6 hours after we started. Pickles was exhausted. And we still had to drive back down that awful bumpy. But we concluded that the awful drive was worth the amazing hike (though I'm not sure if we could do it again soon). Maybe the drive from the west side is better.

Doggy Day Care

2011-08-23T21:02:00.001-06:00

Roscoe and Lily both came over today to play with Pickles. I think it's a safe bet that they were all very very happy about this situation. The morning started off with some wrestling in the living room followed by a game of chase in the backyard. Our backyard is way too small for chase. They might have all sustained some bruises from running into things. It's pretty hot outside today too. After everyone got as much heat as they could stand, the party moved back inside for another hour of wrestling. Finally, at 12:30 they all took a brief nap. After nap time, we had some lunch. Roscoe ate out of a Frisbee and was surprisingly ravenous, Pickles ate off the floor and Lily ignored them and continued her nap. After lunch we had some training 101. We practiced sit, down, shake, come, and stay. It is really cute to train three dogs at the same time. They are adorable all lined up in a row sitting or laying down. Next they had a rousing game of ankle biting. This is especially fun with three dogs because you are never safe. Sometimes Lily likes to just supervise. These are seriously the three cutest dogs ever! They get along so well. They slept for another hour and then played the rest of the day. We'll have to have another play date soon.

The Garden Plot

2011-08-22T21:03:00.000-06:00

This year we rented a small 10'x10' plot in a community garden. It's only about a 10 minute walk from our house up on a hill skirted by a grassy slope. This is a great Pickles walking destination. He gets to run off leash up the hill through the grass to the garden, and there are often other dogs up there to play with. We have quite a harvest of cherry tomatoes this year so we usually walk up there every couple days. The garden is also overrun with acorn and butternut squashes; another month and they should be ready to harvest.

How many acorn squashes can you find?

You can see the corner of Paul's plot on the right. It is much more organized that our tangle of vines.

Agility Class

2011-08-22T18:42:00.001-06:00

We enrolled Pickles in the Humane Society's puppy agility class which is 4 weeks long for an hour once a week. The class is geared towards puppies with age appropriate equipment, i.e. no high jumping. We have been to two classes so far. It's been a slow start in part probably because Pickles is not afraid of any of the equipment and he already has a jump and tunnel at home, the two pieces of equipment he has been introduced to. So far we have gotten our puppies used to going over a jump and through a tunnel and walking on a wobble board and other flat boards. They did have a tire jump which he hasn't seen before but had no trouble going through and they can bend their tunnel so that it isn't straight. This also didn't phase him. On the boards, we were supposed to work on him pausing at the end with front feet off and back feet on. This is the easy way to make sure the dog puts at least one paw in the "contact area" a yellow portion at the bottom of the A-frame, dog walk, and teeter totter that is aimed to prevent dogs from leaping unsafely off the equipment from high heights. We're still working on the contact part. Hopefully, in the next two weeks we'll actually get to see a dog walk, teeter totter, and A-frame.

The best part about class is that there are other puppies there that are really good distractions so that we can work on keeping his attention and getting him to focus in the face of real work distractions.

Swimming with Lily

2011-08-06T17:03:00.001-06:00

Lily is spending the weekend with us. She and Pickles have become fast friends. We took them to res to go swimming this morning and Lily loved the water. Here they are cooling off.

Horsetooth Mountain Park

2011-08-01T07:02:00.001-06:00

A couple weekends ago we went up to Horsetooth Mountain Park near Fort Collins. There is a huge reservoir (Horsetooth Reservoir) next to the park. On the beginning of our hike we came to an arm of the reservoir and stopped to take a swim. Pickles waded right in and swam in circles to cool off. Our hike then took us up to a waterfall which had carved some really cool pools into the rock. We had lunch at the bottom and Pickles enjoying another cool-down swim.

Horsetooth Reservoir

Top of the waterfall

The falls

My First 13er

2011-07-31T14:09:00.001-06:00

Over 4th of July weekend, we went backing packing in the San Juan mountain Range. We drove down Friday night, hiked in Saturday, climbed Organ Mountain on Sunday, and hiked out on Sunday.

Basking in the spotlight on the peak

Napping on the hike back down

Brushing our teeth in the hammock

After a cool-off swim in the creek

The homestretch back to the car

Pretty Flower

Boulder Res

2011-07-31T13:00:00.002-06:00

We found that you can access the north side of Boulder reservoir by walking from Coot Lake. There is a nice rustic swimming area and dogs are allowed off leash. We've been taking Pickles there quite often on the weekends. The water is high at Boulder Res so the area we go to is flooded. It makes great swimming for the pup because he can just wade in and it gets deep very gradually. He'll swim for 10 minutes or more just paddling around if we're out in the water.

Pickles makes a girlfriend

2011-07-21T10:55:00.003-06:00

We are keeping an eye on R&R's cat Millie this week so Pickles got to meet her for the first time. Earlier in the week we went to say hi and he was quite afraid of her, always keeping his distance. She didn't mind him at all though and never stopped purring. Today, however, he was all love and kisses. Millie seemed quite enamored herself.

Pickles Loves to Swim

2011-06-19T15:32:00.002-06:00

Mean Old Chickens

2011-06-19T15:30:00.000-06:00

Pickles has developed an interesting relationship with our three chickens. He is very wary of them and somewhat afraid, but also enjoys taunting them. The chickens appear to have no idea that Pickles could destroy them and if he gets too close to one of them, it will charge at him. When feeling especially frisky, Pickles plays a game where he gets the chickens to chase him. He runs by one close enough that it will charge him and then runs away, circles around and zooms by another one, continuing around the yard doing figure 8s and seeing how close he can get to them or how far they will run after him. Sometimes he even grabs a toy and imagine he is playing keep away.

The chickens have discovered the deliciously raw meaty soup bones that we give Pickles and all three of them will run him off a bone and then stand there pecking at it while he watches longingly from a safe distance. He is too afraid of them to go take it back or to run them off himself. Once we run them off for him, he takes him bone and hides behind the bushes chewing on it; whenever, a chicken starts heading in his direction he picks it up and moves to a new location. The chickens are very bold about running him off if they catch him not paying attention.

Here they are with their stolen treasure.

Agility Jumps

2011-05-28T20:11:00.001-06:00

After playing with agility jumps over the weekend, we decided to make our own. There are lots of plans all over the internet and pvc is pretty cheap. We made two jumps for about $20/each. You could make them for less, but we got threaded joints so that they are easily detachable. Pickles got the hang of it quickly.

He's not supposed to do any real jumping until he's 14 months old and his growth plates are closed. So we're keeping all the jumps low, below shoulder height and only asking him to do a couple jumps at time.

Pretty Pictures

2011-05-27T20:21:00.001-06:00

Tricks!

2011-05-26T20:33:00.001-06:00

Here is Pickles showing off all the tricks he knows.

Up up - means sit up with a straight back. We taught this by luring him into the position with a treat. It took quite a while for him to build up the stomach muscles to be able to do it. I think we've been working on it off and on for a month. Over the past week we've been focusing a lot on it and he finally has it!

Spin - turn around clockwise. This was also a lure with the treat at first. It didn't take him long to get away from the lure and only need a hand motion, but going from hand motion to only verbal without any hand signal took 2-3 weeks. Now we're working on twirl which means turn counter clockwise. I think he's learning it a lot faster, though he does tend to guess and spin if we don't give the hand motion quickly enough after the verbal cue.

Roll Over - he's known this one for quite a while. Evvie helped us out working on it for the week she was here. Now that he knows spin though sometimes he gets confused and stands up and spins instead of rolling over.

We're also working on bye bye - which means paw at the air twice, crawl which is crawling along the ground, and look cute which means cock your head to one side.