Summer with Peter and Carol

Peter and Carol came to stay again!! This time they took me to Tahoe and we had a fun time. They took me to the top of a Squaw Valley in the cable car! I was a very good boy when we went up. I could go up and down in the cable car all day long – it was amazing to see the valley below from so high. The other great thing about the cable car is that it takes you to the top of the mountain without you having to walk all the way up! So when we got there, we were full of energy and ready for our hike.

We also went to Glacier Way on Donner Ridge and did the hike from there. It was a super hot day and we had to rest a few times. Luckily Carol brought enough water for everyone including me! 

Mind you, I still needed a top up when we got back to the car park…

Later on mummy and daddy came up to Tahoe and we all went to Lost Lake. It was another hot day and so we all had a great time swimming in the cool alpine lake…even with tennis balls!

 
All that swimming made for thirsty work so we stopped and had a picnic. I had my own picnic kibble but Peter’s sandwiches looked much more appetizing. 

 





From Lost Lake, we hiked along the contours to a view point. As you can see, in this picture I am the view point!

All that hiking made us hot again so we had one last swim about in the lake before heading back.

When we got back to the car part, I was so tired that daddy had to help me up into the car. Or at least that’s what I told him…. :o)

Happy Hammock Times

Daddy and I spent this afternoon chilling out on the hammock.

 

After a while, daddy got fidgety and started playing with my jowls so that I made funny faces.

Once again I had to sit on him to make him stop!

Will he never learn? Maybe I should try positive reinforcement with treats……?

Back-Country Boardin'

I love back-country snowboarding. OK…I don’t snowboard (I am a dog after all) but I love to run around in the snow, carving my own lines in the fresh pow. 

First we have to earn our turns as daddy says. We hike all the way up to the top of the ridge. Mummy and daddy wear peculiar shoes to help them get up the steep slopes in the snow because they don’t have specially adapted paws like me.

Then we carve down the mountain 
Here's me and mummy!

 

And here we are in action...

 

It's thirsty work hiking up the slope and then running down again, especially in the Sierra sun. Mummy always brings a backpack filled with cool water - enough for both me and her. I have perfected the art of drinking from a Camelbak!

Once we've stopped for refreshments, we set off again to find the perfect run. Daddy likes to stop every now and then for a photo shoot. He'll get mummy and I to pose just so...

But I always like to be the super model!

Then it's back to boardin' and this time it's a run with daddy. He likes to catch 'big air' and as you can see, so do my ears. 

No matter what, mummy always celebrates every run!

Skate Dog

We went up to the cabin this weekend for the last few days of Spring skiing. As the weather was so lovely, daddy decided to put the snowboard to one side and bring out another board – his skateboard! I have never seen this before but what a wheeze! Daddy rolled all along the roads by the cabin and I followed along, sometimes leading the way and other times chasing daddy.

Daddy even let me have a go! I think it's definitely easier if I stand on 4 legs though daddy!

FUN-employment

The first half of 2009 was tremendous fun because mummy got laid off from work and we got to spend a lot of time playing together. While mummy was off work, she spent some time traveling. One of the places she went was Turkey. I don't know why she had to go so far. I regularly see wild turkey right here in our driveway. Not that I want to hang out with them. They are bigger than me but I still chase them down the road. Mummy seemed to have a great time though, especially as she met up with friends who were traveling the world. She also got to stop off in London to catch up with her friends and family. I think mummy secretly wanted to spend more time traveling but she had to come home to look for a job. Oh...and to look after me and daddy. I am not sure which one of us was happiest to see her again!

 
Nearly every day we went for hikes around Mt. Tam. I got to see some wonderful morning views of San Francisco. 

 

On the way home from a long hike, I like to stop at this one house that has a water feature in the front garden. It’s the perfect place to cool my paws!

Mummy took me mountain biking on Mt. Tam. I ran alongside the bike….mummy was much faster than me on the downhills but I was much, much faster than her on the uphills. I had to keep turning around to check that she was still there! Every now and then we would stop for a drink.

 

We were both just as tired as each other at the end of a ride and we always had a victory cuddle to celebrate making it to the end in one piece.

Mummy said this time that all this time we got to spend together was called 'funemployment'. I like it when mummy is funemployed! 

Milo's Going on a Summer Holiday!

It has been a while since I sent a memo and the reason is that I have been so busy this summer.

 

Mummy and Daddy have been busy with something called the “global economic recession”… people are being forced out of their kennels and have to buy a smaller place to live. I am glad I already have a kennel and a big dog bed because if I had to have a smaller one I would have trouble fitting on it at night, especially as I like to stretch out and make myself really long when I sleep. Apparently people also have to make do with less. So in order to do my part, I am playing with toys like this one, which should really be thrown away as I have chewed them a lot.

To save money in the ‘”global economic recession”, mummy, daddy and I spent our summer holidays in Tahoe. Personally I think this was better than “going away” because that means going to camp without mummy and daddy, and there are no lakes and mountains at camp.

 

I spent a lot of my holiday in the lake, fetching tennis balls…

Mummy made strange squeaks when I got out of the lake and shook myself to dry off!


 

 

When I wasn’t chasing tennis balls, I took mummy and daddy hiking. Here are mummy and me at the top of one of the mountains after a long, steep climb up. It was very windy up there. Mummy kept losing her hat and I kept getting wind in my jowls…very strange….

Most of the hikes were fairly sedate by my standards, as you can see from this picture…

 

Daddy and I spent a lot of time swimming in the alpine lakes that we hiked to. It was lovely to jump into the clear blue water after a long walk in the hot sun.

 

I tried to teach daddy how to fetch sticks but his mouth is not designed like mine so he had trouble with the technique.

Daddy did teach me a great new trick though. He jumped into the water from a “rope swing” and I dived in afterwards to rescue him. We did it over and over and over again – it was so much fun!

Here I am diving in after daddy… 

Here I am swimming out to rescue him… Daddy is always very encouraging, calling out to me and telling me what a good boy I am. Sometimes he would swim towards me…

Then he would swim around in the lake with me and I would lead him back to the shore.

 

Daddy also took me in a “canoe”

Daddy gave me an oar of my own, although he was much better at paddling than I was. I would prefer to be IN the water than on it…

At the end of every day of the holiday, daddy and I would spend quality time just hanging out on the sofa with one of my favourite toys.

 

 
All the adventures of each day left me completely tuckered out and I spent a lot of time sleeping and dreaming of all the fun things we would do the next day on our holiday….

Sweet Dreams!

Milo

XXX

The Smith/Gulick Wedding

In early October I was invited to a very special event called “a wedding”. When two people are very much in love, they celebrate their love with a ‘ceremony’, where they promise to love each other forever. I love water and tennis balls very much so maybe I could have a wedding with one of those? It would be difficult to choose which one though. Maybe that is what people mean when they say it takes so long to find ‘the one’?

The wedding was amazing. I was allowed to come to the after-party and there were lots of wonderful people there who played with me. I was on my best behaviour and didn’t steal any food. Everyone said that I was a very good boy. 

Daddy was not on his best behaviour. He had way too much food called ‘wine’. I was not sure why a type of food would be called that until the next day, when dad did a lot of whining. I usually do that when I want to go outside but daddy didn’t want to go anywhere – he wouldn’t even get out of bed! Eventually I was able to coax daddy out of bed by licking his toes….

Once he was out of bed, I showed daddy that the best remedy was to jump into the pool, head and paws first. 
Here I am showing daddy how it’s done…

 

 

Once daddy got the hang of things, he showed me how to make swimming even more fun…by introducing tennis balls!! That was great fun. Water and tennis balls… my wedding favourites!

 

 

 

 

Then daddy showed me a new game where we jump into the swimming pool together after the tennis balls and see who can get them first.

 

Daddy saw that by going head first, I was winning so he had a go at that technique himself.

 

Next we had swimming races and as you can see, I was much faster than daddy. So he tried to cheat by distracting me with tennis balls. Bad daddy!

 

Then Daddy got really carried away … he often has a tendency to take it just one step too far. He was constantly dive bombing me!! 

So I had to give daddy a “time-out”…no more playtimes until he calmed down. As you can see, he was not very happy. 

 

Eventually mummy came and told us it was time to stop playing. We relaxed on the sun loungers for a while and then because daddy had finally recovered from his ‘wine-ing’, we were able to go home.

So here is the end of another Milo Memo! 
Pawsitively Yours, Milo xxx