Winter Break - Take 1

On a crispy winter-break morning, Elaina said, "I'm going for a run. It's conditioning for soccer." Natalie wanted to run with her. I said, Why don't you take Rosie?

 

Sofia said, "I'll walk," and agreed to take Gus. He's a very good walker, I told her.

 

I came along with FLD Scout, who, on this particular morning, wasn't a very good walker.

 

I don't think she liked seeing Rosie leave us in the dust.

 

Sporting a white and black panda hat, Sofia and Gus wait for me and FLD Scout.

 

It is exactly one mile from our house on the top of the hill south to Wiltse Road. Elaina, Nat, and Rosie were a half-mile gone before I caught up to Sofia and Gus, who waited patiently for me to walk Scout backwards every time she put tension on the leash.

 

FLD Scout and I never made it all the way to Wiltse Road.

Elaina smiles, in spite of her hill effort coming back from Wiltse Road.

 

Elaina came charging up the first hill on her return mile. Natalie trudged behind with Rosie. There are no hills like these in their downstate suburban neighborhood.

 

My nieces lead the way...it's uphill home, from every direction!

 

FLD Scout and I turned homeward--I figured with all my backwards-walking I got the distance in.

Go on ahead, I said to Sofia and Natalie. We'll get there.

 

Eventually.

 

My three nieces (and Rosie) came north with Andy when he came home from downstate business one Sunday night in February. Their mom, my sister Anne, would be up later in the week to spend a couple of relaxing days and then drive them back in time for weekend soccer games. Get ready for some picture-tales of our fun-filled week!

Guide Dog Puppy Sponsorship Auction

Fellow blogger, Laura (she writes the blog "Dog's Eye View"), is hosting a Guide Dog Puppy Sponsorship Auction to raise money for Guide Dogs of America. Laura's second guide dog, Jack, is from Guide Dogs of America, and this auction is her way to give back to that organization. 

Laura's first guide dog was Leader Dog Willow, a yellow lab from Leader Dogs for the Blind. At that time Laura supported Leader Dogs in several ways, including her photo of LD Willow on Leader Dogs' 2007-08 holiday card.

At any rate, please take a moment to check out the items up for bid at Laura's auction by clicking HERE.

You might also want to check out my own contribution to the auction--my first "chapbook" of poems and photos inspired by raising Future Leader Dogs. Here is the link to my "puppy poetry and photos" book: puppy poetry and photos.

I will also donate $5 to Leader Dogs for the Blind in the name of the winner.

So put a bid in!

The auction runs from February 25 through Sunday, March 4 at 10:00 pm.

Here is the front of my chapbook. Cover is glossy photo paper.

The back cover.

An inside peek. There are 36 pages of photos and poems, some of which have never been published on my blog.

Les Cheneaux Snowsfest--Fun in the UP

SNOWSFEST - A celebration of winter, UP-style. Here is a picture diary of our first UP (Upper Peninsula) Leader Dogs for the Blind puppy outing of 2012.  Eight Future Leader Dog puppies and their raisers have fun in Hessel, on the northern shores of Lake Huron.

FLD Scout looks over the festivities.

FLD Ruckus looks up at raiser Tammy as if to say, "Do we really have to hang out with these young pups?"  FLD Autumn checks out FLD Yooper while FLD Atlas looks on.

FLD Hope flirts with Scout.

FLD Scout sees her first snowmobile...a young boy practices on the race track out on the ice.

We find a giant "snow dog" sculpted on the ice and I try to get FLD Scout to pose...

...she rather liked the view from the top, instead.

"Aw, jeez...not ANOTHER picture!"

FLD Jet meets his half-brother, FLD Yooper. (They share the same mother, Leader Dog Mom, Amber.)

Jet's raiser, Suzanne, and Yooper's raiser, Gary, try to get the brothers to pose for a picture.

Suzanne gets their attention--with a treat?

Awwww, good puppies!

FLD Yooper poses nicely on a hay bale in the Leader Dogs for the Blind warming tent.

FLD Autumn says she can sit pretty on the hay bale too! ("Why do people think I'm part Shar-Pei?")

These "licky-labs"--here Yooper plants one on Gary's nose while Phyllis looks on...

...and Scout gets a few slurps in with a visitor.

This family loves the puppies. Here FLD Jet tries to sneak a lick on a cold little boy.

The outing provides excellent distractions: kids playing games, snowmobile races, and a chili-cook-off. Here FLD Scout looks on while participants show off their pets' tricks in the "dog show."

FLD Scout thinks FLD Autumn looks great in her "big dog" working jacket.

Take Me Home, Scout

The day before Valentine's Day...

I tie the red 15-foot lead around my waist so I can have my hands free to take pictures. FLD Scout is clipped to the other end. It is a crisp, cobalt-sky morning with a new dusting of snow.

FLD Scout on her red "play" leash before our hike.

Scout and cc'd Gus and I take to the woods for a three-mile hilly hike in the park abutting our land to see what has been out and about.  If I was a naturalist, like Jonathan Schechter (who writes his Earth's Almanac blog for the Oakland Press), I could identify what creatures made the tracks in the snow.

Alas, I am not. I can only imagine what scampered by in the wee hours before light.

I CAN identify coyote scat. Scout sniffs, but forgoes the snack with a hearty LEAVE IT from me.

Frozen scat.

"Forrest Gus" does his bit to keep the trail clear, and carries a long limb like a high-wire walker. Then he zigzags with it through the woods as an elk or moose might run, swooping heavy-antlered crowns between the trees.  I hear a CEEEEERRRAAAACK and turn to see Gus sporting a shortened limb after being waylaid, however briefly, by trees too close. There's something to be said for brute strength.

Forrest Gus grabs a limb.

He breaks it free, balancing it as he runs toward us.

Gus thinks his job is to keep the trail clear!

I hand Scout a smaller stick and she carries it with import. I am proud when she bounces out to the end of the long lead and eases up when she feels tension, but it would be nice to get a little pull UP the hills!

The sticky snow is tough going. Gus and Scout leave prints behind as big as bear paws. Gus trots twice the distance Scout and I hike, chasing scents off-trail, racing ahead only to turn and race back as if to hurry us up. He never wanders far.

When the trail curves left toward a section of sharp dips and climbs, I call right to the dogs. We veer off to take a shortcut to avoid the steepest of the hills. I cannot afford a fall with my camera, or my still-healing finger!

Scout, I say, take me home.

She plods ahead, stick in mouth, turning me a little more to the right. She finds the route that Jeff, my step-son-in-law, and I bushwhacked from the other direction on snowshoes last month with his two German Shorthair Pointers and my three dogs.

Scout weaves between towering poplars that squeak in the wind overhead, passes near woodpecker condos, and carefully steers clear of long, snow-blanketed humps that I know are tree falls by the naked roots reaching skyward.

She confidently leads me back to our "patch."

I am amazed. Our showshoe tracks are long gone (to quote Ernie Harwell) after rounds of thaw and fresh snowfall. Her pace quickens when we reach the well-worn paths on our property. We are a quarter mile from home.

Patterning. That's what Leader Dogs for the Blind trainers might call what Scout did in remembering the route home.

Here are some pictures of the tracks we saw this day.