Cap'n Jack Gets His Sea Legs

Our friend Mark invited us to go over to San Francisco for a benefit called "Dog Day Afternoon" put on by the retail store Pawtrero.  It's a benefit for the Muttville Senior Dog Rescue, and only a few blocks from a berth at South Beach Harbor.

We got the boat in the water in Alameda, got Jack and Mark's girl Maya (THE Mayanator!) secured, and coated (it was pretty chilly starting out, and we blasted across the bay!

You'll want to turn up the speakers for this one...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP-jO8vIR70&feature=share&list=UUS_dLL095bBlV_SYcocYQIQ

We had breakfast at Red's Java House, and threw some discs on the lawn.  Yeah.  That lawn.  That lawn right there...

We had a great time with all the dogs at the Pawtrero event, but I didn't get any pictures as there was so much going on, I couldn't handle Jack with one hand and the camera with the other!

We had beers at 21st Amendment, where Wendy joined us...

It turned out that I won a $50 gift cert to a local restaurant in the Pawtrero raffle!  So we headed back to the event to meet more dogs, hear more music.  Things were starting to wind down, so we stuffed our pockets with treats being handed out by various vendors, and headed back to the boat.  You can see that Maya is the REAL captain here....

It was a Grand Day Out!  I think the only thing a dog likes better than a car ride is a boat ride!

Close Call

October 21 was Jack's regular DOCP injection day, at Day 28.
The day began with Jack being a little tired, or sleepy.. I didn't really take much notice.
We went through our usual morning ritual: We greet each other by the back door with wags and pets, then I open the door, and Jack goes out on the porch.  He then turns around and sits down.
I sit down with him, and we have more pets.  Often, he'll finish this little ritual by putting his front feet up on my shoulder (body rubs!) and he'll kiss me on the nose, spin around and run around the corner to do his usual morning ablutions.
As usual I got his breakfast at this point, probably about 5:00am.
I left him out there with his breakfast and went to the garage to practice guitar a bit.
Soon, Sue Ann came down and told me that Jack hadn't touched his breakfast!
He was up in his crate, and we knew this was a sign of an impending crash.
I gave him his DOCP injection immediately, and in a couple of hours, he was right back to normal.
I think we're going to do his electrolytes this month, and see if it tells us anything.
It's odd, because I've missed his injection once by several days, and it didn't seem to make any difference to him.

August Back Packing

It's been a while since we posted on this blog, and there's been a lot going on!
First, Jack and I went for a backpacking weekend with our neighbors John and Speedy the weekend of August 23.  We see John and Speedy on Dunsmuir Ridge almost every morning we're up there.
Speedy is a rescued pit bull, and John is a fitness fanatic, who realizes the key to a great pit (or just about ANY dog) is them getting enough exercise. So, they go up the hill twice a day on his mountain bike.
Needless to say...John and Speedy are in GREAT shape.

The four of us started at the trailhead for Castle Peak off Highway 80.  We climbed to 9000' and change, to the top shoulder of Castle Peak, and across a windy ridge to the North to the shoulder of Basin Peak.  You then bushwhack across to the Northwest across another ridge which will show you the trail down to Warren Lake at 7200'.  It's probably 7 miles or so, but the elevation gain and loss are brutal.
Warren Lake is really nice, because it's so hard to get to, there are very few people even so close to Hwy 80.  The weather was just about perfect: cool.  If it had been hot, this would not have been possible.
Jack had a great time, and actually seemed to play with Speedy once we got to the lake and got rested up a little.
Jack, Speedy and I, at the Castle Peak trail

There were a number of fires in the Sierra at the time, including an epic one burning to the south, near Yosemite.  You'll see the smoke that almost made us cancel the trip on this shot heading up to Castle Peak

We were all pretty bushed when we finally got to Warren Lake....

But the view was worth it...

Boy were we tired when we got home.  After a 4 hour ride in the car, we both just stumbled out into the driveway!