Perla Bed Sleeping Positions

Levi loves sleeping in his Perla bed.  I happened to get a couple pictures of his favorite sleeping positions.

End of Vacation :(

Levi and I had a great time at home with my family for the last three weeks but today it was time for me to pack up and head back up to Davis.  Levi is staying behind at my parent's house for an extra week because I'm going to be visiting a vet clinic and can't take him with me :( .  I know he will have tons of fun and be well taken care of while I'm gone.  He probably won't even miss me.

I think he did notice that I was packing today though because he decided to hang out under the bed while I packed.

Post-Finals Trip to Tahoe

Right after finals were over Levi and I decided to make a day trip up to Tahoe to go snowshoeing.  I had planned to go to a new location but we got a later start than planned so we went to Echo Lake where we've snowshoed several times before.  Unfortunately there wasn't much snow there yet.  We were able to snowshoe for an hour or so and then I took the snowshoes off and we hiked another trail that didn't have much snow.  There was still enough snow to make Levi happy though which is the main reason I go anyways.

This trip I decided to bring his favorite ball to play fetch with in the snow.  He had so much fun with it!

Christmas-time

Levi loves Christmas, so shortly after Thanksgiving (or possibly before Thanksgiving) he started wearing his new Christmas collar to get in the holiday mood.

He tried to fit into his gorgeous (and matching colored) Christmas sweater from last year but it was a bit snug.  Maybe it's time to start looking for a new sweater.

As December rolled around he helped set up the Christmas tree.

Including helping to hang the ornaments.

After the tree was done he laid waiting for Santa to deliver his presents.  I had to break it to him that Santa wasn't coming for another few weeks.

He said he promises to be a good doggie until then so he gets presents and not coal in his stocking.

A Break in the Action at School

Things have finally quieted down at school so Levi and I were able to get out for a hike yesterday.  I had been planning on taking him to Tahoe to go hiking but when I was looking up the weather the night before there was a 70% chance of snow, not my ideal driving/hiking weather.  At least it means we are that much closer to snowboarding/snowshoeing season!  So we had a quick change of plans and decided to go to Redwood Regional Park in Oakland.  It had good reviews online and since there are so many places to hike between the Bay Area and Tahoe it's always hard to pick one.  We both really enjoyed it!

Ready to start our hiking adventure

Waiting for Mom to hurry-up and stop taking pictures.

I don't think you can see it in this picture but there was quite a bit of poison oak around.  I had a mild freak out when I realized that Levi had been running all around through it but I just tried to avoid touching him too much until I could get him home to bathe.  In the meantime I figured that if I was going to get it I would since I had already been touching him. No signs of it yet so hopefully that's promising.

Being a good boy posing for pictures : )

Always lots to smell!

 

Our group pictures were a little problematic this trip.  On try #1 I cut the top of my head off and it's kind of blurry.

On try #2 I got my head in the picture but Levi decided not to smile.  Oh well, better luck next time.

We stopped for a little breather and Levi decided it was time to play in the dirt.

 

What a handsome boy : )

Next weekend we are going home to my parent's house where I will be leaving him for a week and a half for baby-sitting while I go to a vet conference the following week.  I know he will be well loved and cared for but I'll miss him while he's gone. 

Dog Park

 

A tired dog is a happy dog...and a happy mom!

Meet Frederick

Frederick is Levi's most recent souvenir that I got when I was in Kentucky this past weekend at a seminar for 3rd year equine vet students.  Here are a few of his adventures while in Kentucky...

At the Kentucky Horse Park Frederick enjoyed sitting and watching the horses wander by.

He also enjoyed spending some time riding.

He practiced his dressage in the dressage ring 

And of course he loved to graze on all of the lush green grass

He got new shoes in the farrier shop

And he had to make time for a little bit of shopping in the gift shop.

And before he left for his new home he had to say goodbye to his good friend, Cupcake.

Then it was on the road to his new home in California.  

At the airport he spent some time getting acquainted with security

 Then he sat down for some dinner at the airport restaurant

Lastly, it was time to board the plane and fly home to meet his new friend Levi

Levi took to him right away and they are already great friends.

Unfortunately I have a feeling that Frederick will soon look like many of Levi's other "friends"

Levi's Off-Trail Adventure

Levi and I went for a short hike near my parents' house today.  We went mid-morning so it wasn't too warm out yet, but the hike was a moderate climb so I took several rest/water breaks for Levi so he didn't get too hot. 

Beautiful day on the central coast.

Towards the end of the hike Levi decided to go off the trail and came back looking like this...

 

He decided to run through a ton of sticker plants and was covered head to tail in tiny little stickers.  Here's a few close-ups for you.  

It took about 45 minutes to comb them all out of his hair when we got home.  I think we'll stick to swimming in the pool tomorrow rather than hiking again ;-)

Davis Adventures

Levi and I are back in Templeton for the next few weeks getting to enjoy the last couple weeks of summer.  We had a few fun outings in Davis (or the surrounding areas) the past few weeks but I was too busy to post about them then so I'm sorry these are a tad late.

Point Isabel Regional Shoreline
Alicia and I took had been wanting to take the dogs to the beach and we read about Point Isabel online which sounded really neat so we though we'd try it a few weekends ago.  We got there and it was FILLED with dogs!  I don't think I've ever seen so many dogs and people in one place before. 

I was expecting Levi to be crazy and wanting to say hi to everyone but he did really well.  I think that since there were so many dogs there he wasn't as excited about each of them. 

Playing with a friendly Vizsla

Happy pup!

Levi really just wanted to find a way into the water the whole time.   Unfortunately what we didn't know going in was that there wasn't very good water access (or at least not that I could find).  It is mostly just a walking path around a water channel that is surrounded by large rocks on both sides. 

Scaling rocks to get to the water.

We found a little area that wasn't as rocky so Levi could swim for a bit but the whole walk after that he kept running down the rocks trying to get back to the water.

The rocks took it's toll on his paw pads and made two of his front pads raw to the point that he started limping at the end. :-(  The next day his feet were so tender that he barely wanted to move.  I bandaged up his paws and he seemed to feel better after that.

American River
The next trip we made was back to the American River in Sac.  Just Levi and I went this time.  We went back to Paradise Beach to a stretch of river that we had found on the fourth of July that was good for swimming.

Does this look like "Paradise" to you?  Good thing it gets better than this.

Levi was so excited to be there and wanted to run all around in the sand and swim after his bumper in the water.  The water was moving a little bit more than I liked so when I threw the toy it would slowly drift down the river and Levi would drift along with it as he swam for it.  I didn't throw his toy very far or let him swim too much because of it but he had fun anyway. 

Waiting for me to throw his bumper

Crazy boy playing in the sand

On our way out I found a different stretch of the river that is a shallower cove where the water didn't seem to be moving much.  It was pretty crowded with families and kids playing in the water so we didn't stop to swim but next time I'll try to go earlier and let him swim there.

Loch Leven Lakes Trail
On Monday Alicia and I took Levi and ChaCha hiking in north Lake Tahoe.  Alicia had hiked this trail with some of our other friends previously and they all really liked it so we decided to go there again.  In their previous trip one of the dogs paw pads were worn raw since the trial is really rocky so I decided to get Levi some hiking booties to protect his delicate little toes.  One stop at REI and he was ready for action. 

Levi sporting his new Ruff Wear Bark'n Boots

He surprisingly didn't mind the booties much, probably because he was so excited to be out hiking.  They were a little big on his back feet and one of them kept rotating so I had to stop and fix it quite a few times.  They stayed right-side-up on his front feet but the top got under his dew claws a few times and irritated it.  Overall though they did a good job protecting his feet which I'm sure would have been torn to shreds the way he was running around on all the rocks and through the shrubbery. 

Levi didn't want to look at me for any of his posed pictures :-(

He can always find a stick to chew

ChaCha somehow managed to scale this giant boulder

Taking a rest break to cool off

Admiring the view

How I love being in the mountains!

We didn't make it the big lake at the end of the hike since we had to be home at a certain time and we got a little bit of a late start.  Hopefully we'll go back again when we don't have any time constraints because it was a really nice hike.  I'm looking forward to trying a few of the other Tahoe hikes that I've read about too.  And the jury is still out on the booties.  I might try the next smaller size and see if those work better (he measured in-between sizes).  If it still gets caught under his dew claw though I might have to try something else.