It's a Beautiful Day! (tm)

It really is a pretty day. In fact its been a pretty weekend all together.

Yesterday Skyefoil and I went to Beach Lake to walk the dogs. We found the Beach Lake geocache which was 30 or so percent around the lake than where we parked, we walked over the lake for most of it. Sam was of course a good doggie the entire time. Shila, sigh, read all about that here.

The clouds of Saturday were erased from the sky to let the sun shine through on my Sunday. I really should be working today. I have several jobs :(. Instead I decided to get out of the house and take shila on a geocache hunt. We took off, I bought some new sunglasses cause somewhere in Anchorage I lost mine, then I totally missed the turnoff to go to the cache trailhead. I knew I had to go down to the Eagle River VFW and turn around, I pulled into their parking lot and realized suddenly that there were dozens of people with huge cameras pointed up at some trees. I pulled off to the side before I interrupted anything and took a look. There was a similar amount of eagles up in some trees. I immediately thought about the irony of a bunch of eagles having an air show above the VFW post. I also thought maybe they had been baited to be there by old geezers with nothing better to do. The eagles swooped all over the place and chased a few ravens around, huge cameras with huge lenses were snapping away. Shila could't care less concidering how much she hates ravens. Eagles must be out of her scope of things to pay attention to, maybe the rewards are outweighed by the risks :)

We jetted off to the geocache site which also turned out to be an awesome dog walking trail very close to my house. One day I will detail it on http://www.alaskadogparks.com/ in the near future. I own that domain and plan on doing something with it sooooon.. very sooooon.. I hope everybody will be happy with the results.

The cache was Texas Goodies and was located near a trail following Eagle River (the actual river, not the whole town). Shila and I got to sit on a hot rock on the edge of the river and enjoy the pretty scenery with me, she got a yummy chummie for being such an obedient little girl and sitting there with me when I needed somebody to share the moment with. I can't wait to show Skyefoil before it all thaws.

Thats a wrap!

Pound Puppy Profile: Momma Shila

It's that time of the year, time to get a new dog. Sam the dog needs a buddy and Skyefoil started looking at the online pet finder classifieds to find a nice dog in need of a quick rescue.

We had a few dogs lined up in our minds and waited a few days to call about them. Once we called about them we found out they were already gobbled up by other eager doggie do-gooders. Back online we went and Skyefoil ended up finding Shila in a home out in Wasilla, AK. We drove out the next day to see what Shila was all about.

She was shy, both of us had to get on the floor once we got into the house before Shila was all that comfortable around us. She eventually warmed up to us a little bit and we decided Sam better give her the ol' white glove routine and see if she is up to snuff. We brought Sam up to the house where Shila was waiting behind the chain link fence. She noticed Sam and started barking and wagging and growling and jumping and sniffing all at the same time. Sam was calm and just wanted to sniff everything and pee here and there. Thankfully the owners have very large english mastiff dog who probably pees a gallon at a time, so having Sam pee all over the place was no big deal.

Shila followed Sam around for a bit and eventually figured she liked him enough to wanna play a little. Sam didn't mind but he was more focused on sniffing the yard out. We went inside and sat down with both dogs and the foster family for a while. It was time they decided if we were good enough for this poor abused dog. Skyefoil and I joked around with their kids and they played with the dogs a bit, eventually they decided we should take Shila for a sleepover and see how that turns out.

Shila shook the entire ride home. She wasn't calm when we got her into the car - and she definitely wasn't calm until she was home with us and allowed to run all her shivers off in the front yard. Her and Sam ran a bit together. It was very sweet.

Inside, she met the cats. Mia's initial reaction was "For now I want to sniff you, and that is all". Everybody else hissed. Shila didn't care about the hissing and was more concerned with her new people. We all settled down, then Mia cat decided to poof up into a little furball and hiss at Shila as she was meandering by. OH NO, A MONSTER! *trumpets sounding* Sam leaps off the couch and chases away the vile beast. Shila must have appreciated it because she was quite effectionate to Sam afterwards. She didn't seem to mind having a dog growl and lunge at her nearly as much as when a human tiptoes toward her.

She paced a lot when we were trying to sleep. Skyefoil discovered she was a little afraid of the dark, and turned on a night light. She calmed down and snuggled in the bed for a bit before boarding the Snoozeville Express.

The next day was fun, she was very chipper and vocal with us about how much she wanted to play, and go on a walk. The walk was fun, except she isn't to be trusted off-leash for a while. Sam and her instantly darted into the forested area surrounding the park we were at and it took a while to recover her.

She is a lovely dog, I will blog more about her very soon

For now - It's movie time.