Daily walk in Rhythm and seeing Tempo

Today, the song running through my head was by Mealoaf, "We were doubly blessed - we were barely 17 and we were barely dressed..."just that part while walking Lucy on her morning walk. Odd. Almost every morning now there is a song that pops into my head and stays with me the whole walk. Today, we saw Tempo on our morning walk. Tempo is the huge gray Great Dane puppy. He was jumping up and down and his human is a petite woman who probably weighs less than he does. He immediately did the play bow to Lucy. Lucy's tag was wagging a little, but her fur was also raised up a bit too. He's simply giant compared to 25 pound Lucy. She bared her teeth at him twice and I scolded her. "It's okay, Tempo needs to know that not every dog wants to play with him, " she said. I let them sniff each other again. Tempo is so tall, that Lucy can only sniff his mid calf! Funny. Tempo and Lucy then sniffed each other's noses and Tempo licked Lucy's face. I think it's a sign of affection and submission. If so, it's funny that such a large dog would be submissive to a tiny one. I guess Lucy is all personality and probably and alpha dog! Tempo is just adorable. I feel that he doesn't know how large he is. He really is the proverbial "bull in a china shop"

Cool dog related websites....

My first pick is DogSpired: http://dogspired.com/ You can share your stories there about dogs!!!!!!!!

Secondly, I found this nice site called DogTipper.com. It's a great community of dog lovers. They even have a section where you can list your dog blog too. Someone listed my blog there, which I appreciated. Here's the link to the dog blog directory there.

For my third choice: It's the one where Lucy has a little facebook like section...www.dogster.com. Here is Lucy's profile page there :-)

For German shepard lovers, found this link on Twitter - it's a blog about German shephards


And if you're like me - you love to write, you love dogs and you love to write about dogs, you might want to check out the Dog Writer's Association.

Happy Reading!

Saturday brisk walk with Lucy

Today, we took a good a small outing to a local park with a lovely lake.

I tried to keep the pace fast, but Lucy kept pulling me left and right and back and forward. The first few minutes made me regret driving out to the park and not just taking a long walk in our neighborhood, where she is less excited.

After a good 10 minutes of brisk walking and lots of quick tugs on the leash, Lucy finally fell in rhythm with me. Then I started to enjoy the crisp cold air and the sunlight beaming through the trees and sparkling off of the surface of the lake.

Lucy met lots of dogs too, about 6. There was an adorable small black Sharpee, a larger male Benji look-alike, a large pittbull & chocolate lab mix named Sebastien and a few others we walked by. The dog Sebastien immediately did the play bow to Lucy, whom he towered over. Lucy's tail kept wagging, but the longer they snifffed each other, the more the fur on her back slowly started to raise in excitement/tension. I gently pulled her away since once I see her fur raised, it usually leads to her getting unfriendly with the other dog.

All in all, it was a fun walk around the lake and park. To my surprise, she did "her business" though it was the middle of the afternoon. Thankfully, I had a small doggie bag stuffed in my purse for use.

I hope that it doesn't get too cold tonight for our evening walk. It's been terribly cold the past week at night.

Lucy Bath Time - favorite pic

One of our rare pictures of Lucy "dancing" with her paws up in the air, and this just after her bath:

Great morning walk:

Had a great morning walk with Lucy the other day. The sun was out, the sky was Carolina blue, the trees were a vibrant bright green. We walked our usual route and as we were heading back to the house, Lucy suddenly sat down facing the opposite direction. She usually does that when she sees something of great interest to you -- a car coming, a dog or some wild-life. I paused and looked in that direction. I saw nothing of interest. I cajoled her on, "Come on, Lucy, I have to go to work," but she's just move a few interest and then with great stubborness, sit down facing the cul-de-sac behind us.

It was such a lovely morning, that I was actually enjoying being outside and didn't mind a small distraction, but did need to get going in a minute or two. So, I decided to try again to nudge her along the way home. Once again, we made it only a few inches.

Finally, I decided to indulge her curiosity and at this point mine. We walked back up the hill to the cul-de-sac and then I saw it -- the large yellow lab at the top of the hill sitting like a statue. He stared at Lucy and I motionless. I've met this dog many times and the first time I was a bit scared of him since he's quite large and came barreling down the hill at me and Lucy at full speed. Once he stopped though, he was all licks and his tail was wagging. But, this one might be the other dog, who is also friendly, but very shy.

Once we walked closer the dog froze and then got up and quickly turned to walk a few steps towards his house. The moment we walked away though, this older yellow lab started to slowly walked towards us. The moment we stopped walking, he stopped following us. And so it continued that we took a few steps away and he followed us and when we turned around to say hello, he'd stop or take a few steps back.

I really wanted him to come say hello to us. I even crouched down and waved to him, encouraging him to say hello. Finally, I got Lucy to walk home with me, but only by breaking into fast jog, even up our steep driveway. When I got home, Stuart asked me if I were okay because I was out of breath.

Lucy's first trip with us to the mountains!

Lucy excited for our road trip to the mountains:



Lucy enjoying the mountain air:



Lucy enjoying a short water break during our hike:




Lucy standing proudly on top of Grandfather Mountain:



Lucy enjoying our cabin deck in the mountains:







Lucy tuckered out after her hiking adventures:

Lucy after her bath-time tonight