Happenings Lately

A few weeks ago Levi and I went for a walk along the Putah Creek trail in Davis with ChaCha and Alicia.  It was a nice day so Levi got to go for a little dip in the creek as well.  It was fun to get off of our usual walking paths and onto something more trail-like.  I love living in Davis but sometimes I miss the hills and hiking I had back home. 

Posing by the blackberry plants

Taking a rest break in the shade

Poor Levi had sore paws that evening, which were even more painful the next morning.  I got him a prescription of pain meds and iced and bandaged up his little feet which made him a lot more comfortable.
 

Levi icing his sore pads

I've realized that when he swims and then goes hiking right afterwards is when his paws seem to become raw and sore.  He's such a delicate little flower.  From now on he'll have to wear booties when we go hiking because I hate seeing him limp around the house :-(.

Now he's being babysat by my parents while I'm off on another externship at an equine clinic for a couple of weeks.  He loves visiting my parents house and getting to swim in the pool all the time.

His new favorite activity now that there's grass in the front yard is to swim and then take his toy onto the grass for a good roll. 

He makes me smile every day :-)

San Francisco Beach

A couple of weeks ago my roommate and I had a short day at school and we had a few errands to run in the bay area so we decided to take the dogs along so they could go to the beach. It was a sunny day but very windy! The dogs didn't mind but I sure wouldn't have wanted to go in the ocean! Levi had tons of fun frolicking in the sand, playing chase, and retrieving his bumper from the water. Alicia kindly took all the photos since my hands were covered in doggie slobber and sand. :)

Marin Headlands Hike

Today was day 2 of the three day weekend and Levi and I spent it hiking in Marin with 4 of our friends and their three dogs.  We had quite a diverse pack of dogs including Aedan (golden-doodle), Jill (terrier/dachshund mix), ChaCha (pit/ridgeback mix?), and of course Levi (most wonderful breed-golden retriever).  We got lucky and it was a gorgeous, sunny day in the Bay Area.  Levi enjoyed frolicking on the beach for a little bit before we headed out on the hike.  He even met a 5 month old Golden Retriever puppy named Axel that was very cute and wanted to follow us around.  Unfortunately I was thinking all about hiking when getting ready and forgot about the beach part of it so I forgot to bring him a ball or toy to fetch in the ocean.  We made due playing fetch with some sticks though.

Puppy Axel

The humans of our pack

Fisherman fishing off the huge cliff

Careful!!!

Levi says that he had a fun and busy weekend and he's ready for a nap now!

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.

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.