Does That Doggie Ever Stop?

People ask: "Does that doggie ever stop?"

To which I reply: "It's hard to stop for a pause when you're standing on paws!"

Killyon Canyon

Earlier this week, I took a walk up Killyon Canyon (which is at top of Emigration Canyon). My human kept stopping to take pictures of wild flowers. But, what's a dog to do?

The Four Legged Awkward Human

It was the funniest thing ever.

My human has a contract that says he must walk the dog three times a day. Each walk must be at least a half hour in length. Preferrably the walks should be two hours and involve a Frisbee.

Anyway, my human does not stick with the contract and I have to growl at him and bite at his kneecaps to remind him of his duty.

So, I was working on my human to get him to go on a walk.

Instead of putting on his regular shoes, he put on some strange looking black boots with stiff ankles. He then grabbed two blue poles and two really long green planks.

He put them in the car and drove to my running park.

He had a hard time driving because of the awkward boots.

My running field is covered with snow this time of year.

My human then attached the two long green planks to his boots. He used the two poles as if they were front paws.

You have to imagine this. My human was using the green planks as if they were back paws, and was using the long blue poles as if they were front paws. My guess is that he thought his artificial paws might make him and quick and nimbl as a puppy.

It was all really exciting so I jumped up and down uncontrollably.

Well, you can guess what happened next. He slid out in the running field and, sure enough, he immediately fell over.

It was very funny. I jumped up and down on top of him in dog laughter.

My human skooted around the playing field in big wide circles.

Some time he would skoot up the hill and come sliding down.

Often his attempts to slide down would end up in a fall.

I would jump up and down on him each time he fell.

Some times I would run and throw my weight against him to see if I could force a fall. I rarely succeeded.

One time he did this fall where the two planks on his feet V'ed out from under him and he fell into the snow face first ... his feet attached to the boards like hinges.

Watching my human on wooden planks falling over was extremely funny. It is interesting though that humans can use really long poles as if they were front paws.

PS: I wish all the doggies and their humans a Happy New Year.

Dancing Shoes

My humans got me pair of dancing shoes. I think they are trying to help me with my soar paw. I am not pleased at all with this development. Below I am wearing all four of my new shoes on a walk.

Don't Forget the Doggie

My human is super forgetful.

Everytime we go on a walk he forgets something and we have to go back to the house.

He will forget the water. He will forget the poop bags. He will forget the leash. He will even forget the Frisbee.

I swear, if it wasn't jumping up and down on top of him, he would forget the doggie.

Coco, How Hot Is It?

It is so hot, a doggie wants to extend its big red tongue to maximum length and pant harder than a steam locomotive climbing a steep grade.

It is so hot that a doggie wants to skulk from shade tree to shade tree along the trail.

It is so hot a doggie wants to scratch at a smell in the lawn and roll with abandon.

It is so hot that a doggie wants to sit in a muddy spot at the playground.

It is so hot that a doggie wants to drink a whole Frisbee full of water. Tinkle. Then drink again.

It is so hot that a doggie would prefer to stay in the shade under a tree to running and fetching the Frisbee.

It is so hot that a doggie would prefer to stay in the spot under the cool air conditioner to greeting granny when she comes to the door.

It is so hot that a doggie wants to bite at the stream of water coming from the hose as granny waters the flowers.

It is so hot that a doggie wants to throw itself into the cool rushing water of a brook.

SatScenes

Today I instructed my human to take me on a walk up Neff Creek Canyon to get some photos for the SatScene Project. The calendar in the dog world is a little bit different than the calendar in the human world. Our weeks have only one day, and that day is Saturday.

If my human did this right; you should be able to click on the picture to see a large view, then click the large view to get back to this post.

Dogs of Service

This is a picture of me at the Service Dog Memorial at the Utah State Capitol Building. I visited the memorial on July 4^th, 2009.

As it was the Fourth of July, I donned red scarf and used my blue leash with stars.

Standing next to a gigantic five foot high statue of a service dog was unnerving at first. But I am incredibly brave and calmed down for the picture.

I see myself as a service dog.

In addition to blogging, I do all sorts of important service type things ranging from waking granny in the morning to fetching the frisbee. I once found the frisbee despite its being really welll hidden.

Mother's Day Photos

As mentioned in the last post, I was separated from my biological mom at birth.

Being a wonderful creature at heart, I decided to take granny on a walk up Neff Canyon. I placed several photos of our adventure below.

There is water in Neffs during the Spring.

I worry alot about my dainty little paws getting wet when I come across water. When I get wet, I end up tracking mud and dirt in the car and take on a strange odor.

When I come to a stream, there is often a full 1/328^th of a second where I consider the consequences of getting wet before diving in the water.

I've noticed that my humans seem to have a harder time accepting the inevitable that wetness happens. Here is a shot of Granny trying to keep her toes from getting wet.

Anyway, I put a few pictures from the walk below. There are also some pictures for flowers from granny's garden.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter One and All.

Easter is my favorite holiday of the year. Easter Sunday begins with Easter Egg hunts at the school where I do my daily walks. That means that during the Easter Day walk, I find all sorts of strange colored broken eggs and candies of all variety during my walk.

There is no time for frisbee on Easter, as the park is full of free food.

I am really good at sniffing out free food.

Just a second. My human just informed me that we will walk in the mountains today.

Human, don't you know that there is free food in the park? How could you walk in the mountains when you know that there is free food in the park?

Happy Easter one and all.

A Good Walk Ruined

I wish you knew how much my afternoon walk means to me.

It is the absolute highlight of my day. A dog day is the equivalent to a whole human week!

Anyway, my doltish human is often inattentive (or dare I say neglectful) on our walks.

Today was shaping up to be a great walk. We had just completed the first frisbee fetch and looking forward to a series of fetches when, out of the blue, somebody came and peed on the frisbee.

I have my suspensions about who to blame, but I am not going to name names.

I remember clearly that I had the frisbee firmly in my snout. I dropped it. The next thing I knww was that my human was there holding a peed covered frisbee while making really strange faces and noises.

The frisbee was clearly not in my possession at the time of the crime. I had dropped it (the drop is oh so difficult).

I also have an air tight alibi.

I was off taking a tinkle.

My human was the only other large mammal at the dog park at the moment. I am really sorry, but all of the evidence (and lack of alibi) seem to point toward the human.

Anyway, the walk wasn't all that fun. My frisbee smalled like someone had peed on it ... so I ran off and dug up moles.

This being Good Friday, I will forgive my human the transgression. I hope that he improves his dog walking skills for future walks.

Wreckage

It was really super windy and cold on the walk today. During the my human and I came across the wreckage below. It was sitting in the middle of the playing field where I do my frisbee fetching.

As you can see by the footprints at the scene, we weren't the first ones to the crash site. Sadly, there was no sign of survivors.

Big Yellow Balloon

I was having a really fun time with the new frisbee on my walk today. This new frisbee does this cool thing where it hangs in the air just a bit.

I have to jump really high to fetch it.

During one of my jumps, I saw a really funny thing.

It was a yellow mylar balloon with a happy face floating about 80 feet above the field. The balloon was bobbing back and forth. It looked like a big yellow human head just bobbing in the wind.

I realized that it was too high to fetch; So, I went back to the frisbee.

My human stood their mesmerized by the balloon. He watched the balloon float by and asked me questions like: "How high is that balloon?" or "How fast is it going?"

I always have a hard time translating dog units of measure to human units of measure and couldn't answer (although I knew the answer).

He watched as the balloon flew toward the northern side of Neff Canyon. He wondered if the balloon would just crash into the mountain wall. The balloon got really super tiny as it approach the mountain wall. It looked for a moment like the balloon would just land on the mountainside. The suddenly it caught an up draft and shot several thousand feet into the air and flew over the Wasatch Mountains.

It was a clear day, and my human stood there for like a half hour just watching the balloon.

As for me. I took a break from balloon watching and found a patch of eating grass.

It is sad. My humans just don't feed me enough and my empty ribs spend most of the day echoing with hunger. Sadly, the small amount of energy that I can eke out of a blade of grass is all that stands between this dog and starvation.

Starvation! I tell you.

After the spectacle, we talked about mylar balloons and speculated on where it would end up. We wondered how long will it be until the whole world is covered with lost mylar balloons. We spoke of the tragedy suffered when a person lets go of a balloon and it is gone forever.

The human thinks it will end up in the High Uinta Wilderness area. I think it will float all the way across the continent and land in the Atlantic where it will be swallowed by a whale.

Coco Confronts a Big Yellow Cat

One of my humans just got a new camera which is in the mail and will show up soon. If he can figure out how to use it; you will be seeing more of me in the near future.

I've had many adventures. Most of which have not been properly document. The image titled Coco Confronts a Big Yellow Cat documents a tussle I had with a massive yellow cat on the Neff Canyon Trail.

Then there was the time I was almost killed by a snowplow. I have had many doggie adventures in my day.

The Jaws of Destiny

Imagine that this tennis ball represents the earth.

Now, imagine that my snout represents the jaws of destiny.

With that in mind, human, lets go forth to the dog park and play fetch.

Fashion Scents

Humans have an odd sense of fashion.

Dogs do it better. As dogs are wise, we simply choose one outfit at birth. That outfit will pretty much last us through our entire lives. Best of all, we will always look great.

Humans, on the other hand, look silly when naked. Consequently, humans spend a great deal of effort trying to cover up their inherent deficiencies by spending gobs and gobs on clothes. Despite their effort, they never achieve the natural balance that comes with being a dog.

Speaking of balance, one of the strangest fashions devised by humans is a torture device called the spiked heel.

Spiked heels are these long claw like things on the heels of certain women's shoes. They really mess up the human's balance. The bark in the dog park is that when women wear these devices, the dog need simply give a tug on the leash and the human will be splayed on the ground.

Spiked heels are silly.

Personally, I prefer spiked toes.

With spiked toes I have traction on ice. The spiked toes lets me quickly change direction on grass or snow so that I can always catch the frisbee.

I love playing frisbee.

Spiked toes are really useful when walking through a stream, or scrambling up a hill. They also make a really unique clickity-click sound when I walk on the pavement between the dog park and house.

Having spike toes means I leave very disctinctive paw prints.

My money grubbing human asked me to point out that The Naturalizer and The Walking Company are stores that sell comfortable walking shoes!

In conclusion. Spiked heels are foolish. Spiked toes are wise. Coco is noted for her wisdom.

Secret Trick

This post is just for doggies.

If you are a human, please stop reading.

Fellow Doggies, I discovered a secret trick on my walk today.

I discovered that if I have a big long stick balanced in my snout and I run between two humans walking side by side on a trail; then the two humans will suddenly wince in pain and start cursing.

This knowledge might come in useful if we decide we need to reign in the humans.

On past walks, I tried running between two trees with a big stick in my snout. That did not work as well.

The Walking Stick

Hello.

It's me again.

Coco.

You remember me. I am short, brown, fury.

I have a snout and a wagging tail.

Anyway, today I wanted to talk about the importance of the walking stick.

I take regular walks in the mountains.

The first thing I try to do on a walk is find a good walking stick.

A walking stick can help one maintain their balance and stay a fall.

I find that the best walking sticks are found in the middle of streams.

If there is a stick in a stream; I go absolutely gaga.

Most of the time, however, I find a stick by the side of the trail.

When I can't find a stick, I like to rip up a small tree by its roots.

My human tries to stop me when I do this. But I say a dog's gotta do what a dog's gotta do.

I find that the best sticks are about a foot longer than the dog is from tip of snout to tip of tail. A good stick will weigh about half the weight of the dog.

When I am totally stretched out, I am about five feet from the tippy tip of my snout to the tippy tip of my tail. I weigh about 40 lbs. So a perfect stick will be about 6 foot long and weigh twenty pounds.

Now, sticks are strange things. Some sticks have two ends and a middle. The sticks with a middle are really easy to carry. You just grab them in the middle, near the center of gravity, and you can run down the trail with the tail wagging.

Unfortunately, there are many sticks that don't have middles and these are really hard to carry. When a stick doesn't have a middle you have to pick it up by the end and contort yourself to offset the weight of the stick. This is really hard when the dog and stick weigh about the same amount.

Yes. It would be great if all sticks had middles. Then one could simply drop the stick and pick it up in the middle.

But they don't and dogs have to suffer.

Of course, sticks with centers don't solve all of the problems. On my favorite trail, there is a place where you have to go between two trees that are only three feet apart.

These are greedy trees that don't like doggies.

I will be running along happily with a 5 foot long stick in snout. I will run between the greedy trees … and, whammo, I've entered a dark space with twirling stars.

It is a real challenge. I've tried walking forward through the trees. I've tried walking with the stick backwards between the trees. There is just no way to get a five foot long stick between two trees that are three feet apart.

As in all of the difficult challenges in life, don't look to your human for help. Humans roll on the ground making that strange laughing noise that is unique to their species (and hyenas).

Speaking of humans, Humans don't want their dogs to have walking sticks. When I find a really good stick, my human will try tugging it from my snout, then will throw it in a random direction.

Here. Let me demonstrate.

I will put the stick at his feet.

There. He threw it.

I will run and get it and put it at his feet again.

See. Twice.

The human just throws the stick away. This time it went in a really deep snow bank.

What does he think I am?

This is really hard work. Let's try it again.

Come on human. Throw the Stick. Throw the stick.

See. The humans just do this over and over again.

I love a good stick. The stick makes the walk.

The Drop

People following my career know that I am a frisbee dog.

Fans have asked: "What is the hardest part of Frisbee?"

Most fans imagine that the leaping feet into the air to snag the Frisbee from the blue skies must be really hard.

The truth is that much of the spectacle of fetch is instinctual. In Frisbee, the dog hurls itself with abandon at a flying disc and becomes one with the Frisbee.

The spectacular part of Frisbee is not the hard part of Frisbee.

The really hard part is the drop.

And the drop is really hard.

After fetching the Frisbee, the dog is asked to run back to the human and drop the Frisbee in set up for the next Frisbee toss.

I find the drop to be emotionally challenging.

The drop involves giving the Frisbee back to the human.

Why should those humans get the Frisbee back? They already have so much and are always grabbing more with those clutchy little hands and opposable thumbs of theirs!

The drop is a struggle.

I know I want to catch the Frisbee again, but I don't want' to give it to the human.

It is an epic mental conflict.

I find that my snout gets all trembly and nervous during the drop. Often I simply want to shake the Frisbee furiously, or run away and drop the Frisbee far, far away from the human.

The funny thing is that when I finally release the frisbee, it is as if the disc was never in my snout.

I occasionally have had spurts where I fell into a rhythm with the human and we did a bunch of frisbee fetches and drops in a row. However, when the human isn't in perfect form (which happens more than I care to recall), I find that I have to shake and rip at the Frisbee.

A few dog years back, I met another Frisbee dog who had her human trained to put out its hand and take the Frisbee between fetches. It is always amazing to watch a well trained human.

My human is somewhat doltish. I doubt I could ever get him trained to reach out his hand; So I just drop the frisbee on the ground. It's a pity. He has to bend down and pick it up out of the dirt. My human's life is harder because he is so untrainable.

A good human is hard to find.

If my human was better trained, perhaps the drop wouldn't be so difficult. But, as it stands, the drop is the hardest part of Frisbee. Each drop takes a deep emotional toll.