Happiness is Sunday at the Creek

I had the most wonderful day with my Mum and Dad today. After breakfast at my favorite restaurant, where everyone knows my name, we took a trip to my favorite creek.

Everywhere is very green.

And the crayfish are back, bigger than ever.

They hide out under the rocks and along the edges.

But they're no match for me. I can catch them by the hundreds!

Shaking the water out of my ears.

It's just deep enough for me here. I can swim if I want.

Or I can keep my feet on the bottom.

The grass is so long now, it was easy to slope off without Mum and Dad seeing me. At least, I thought they couldn't see me. Sometimes I think Mum has eyes in the back of her head!

Sometimes it's nice to just sit on the bank and watch the fishes with Dad.

And a good time was had by all

Boy, does that vacation seem a long time ago! Like it wasn't even this summer. I don't know why we couldn't stay there all the time in those nice, cool mountains. Now I'm confined to the house most of the day as it's HOT and STICKY here. I don't like it one bit.

You're probably wondering if we chased off that coyote yet. Well, it's still around, but hasn't been too bothersome recently, which is good, because the Fish and Game people have been a bit busy with another visitor.

This guy doesn't live around here anymore.

But let's get back to my vacation.

Of course, I got to ride in the front seat most of the way. It's my favorite place to ride, even though my travel bed is in the back, I just go there if I'm really tired. That's usually on the way home. Actually, I think Mum should ride in the back because she takes up more than her fair share of the front seat when she insists on riding in it with me.

Some of the time I do have to be in the navigator's seat, helping Dad by keeping my eye keenly on the road, and my paws pointing the way. You never know when I'm going to have to leap to action and take over the driving.

This is where we camped, near the lake. I had my very own special camping table. Yes, it's true. The keen-eyed among you may have noticed this is in fact my ramp for getting in the back of the car. Apparently, it weighs quite a lot, and took up some of the luggage space Mum and Dad had reserved for (in my opinion), frivolous and unnecessary items. A second cooler for wine and beer, for example - see what I mean? Who needs that? Anyway, it meant it had to serve double duty.

I could have run for miles on the mountain. This is the place with the biggest meadow in the world where we went last year. You can't even see how big it is in this picture. I think it would take me a whole day to run from one end to the other, but I didn't get a chance to find out. Mum insisted on keeping me close by, because we saw a bear on one of our trips up the mountain road. I've never seen a bear, but I smell them a lot when we're up there.

Although there are lots of lakes where we go camping, no one is allowed to swim in them. They're for fishing only. I love to fish, so it seems a bit unfair. To make up for not getting any water time, on the way home, we spent a whole day at the creek with the blue/green water. I swam and swam, and fished and fished, and finally got so tired, I had to find a shady spot on the beach to recover.

Now, that's what I call a vacation!

Rain, rain go away!

We had a very wet and not very pleasant time here last week. That wet stuff just wouldn't stop falling out of the sky. I tried very hard to get Mum to make it stop, because she knows how much I dislike going for walks when it's like that.

The snow wasn't so bad, but everything was just so wet. Monty's staying with us, which means we can get through a lot of towels in a day. Mum makes us lie down on our towels in the hallway as soon as we come home from a walk, and we wait patiently until she wraps another towel around each of us. That's the part we like! We're supposed to stay on the towels until we're dry, but sometimes that's hard to do when dinner or breakfast is waiting in the kitchen. Mum was very pleased with us when she took this photo. We both got tired of waiting and started falling asleep. Monty rested his head on my back and went to sleep, which I usually don't like, but I was so tired, I just didn't care.

Thankfully, the rain stopped today, and we've been down to the magic creek. For some reason, this creek is never there when you want it to be, on the long, hot dry days in the middle of summer. But any time there's tons of rains, suddenly it's right there, stopping me from running over to the galloping trails.

It was great to be out when it wasn't raining. Getting wet and muddy in the creek is a whole different story.

I don't even mind getting in the water when it's covered in ice. But rain, you can keep it.

Crawdad Fishing, Ruby Style

It's been an exhausting week. I've spent hours at the creek, fishing for crawdads.

And do you know how many I've caught?

One.

Almost.

It jumped out at me and I almost caught it in my mouth!

There's a fine art to this crawdad fishing lark. Mum has captured some of my best techniques on this video she made.

The fun's all in the hunt, anyway, and boy, did I have fun!

Pepé le Who?

I stink!

Mum said so.

Dad said so too. He called me a Stinkerpoozer.

And it's all because of that tricky little black and white critter they call Pepé le Pew, who hangs out down by the creek.


I had to get doused in this stuff.

We waited for it to dry, then Mum did it again.

The stink didn't go away. That was Thursday.

Since then, Mum has washed me at least 10 times* with all of this stuff.

I've had to sleep outside every night.**

I'm almost going bald from all the bathing.
(But I'm still quite glamorous, aren't I?)

And apparently, I still stink!

*This may be a slight exaggeration, but I swear it was at least 8 times!
**Mum did sleep outside with me so I wouldn't feel lonely

Fossil Creek Adventure

So after Monty went home, Mum and Dad took me on a special adventure.

I tried to be patient waiting for them to put all the camping stuff in the car...

And then we were off. I kept a keen eye on the road to make sure Dad took all the right turns.

Finally, after hours and hours in the car and lots of twisting and turning down a bumpety road, I spotted THE CREEK!

In case you don't know already, I love the creek!

I tried stalking some creek critters, but no matter how long I waited, those fish stayed under the water.
I tried staring them down, and willing them to jump out.

Next, I tried some of my duck hunting tactics. I bet you can't see where I'm hiding!

When I was thoroughly muddy and covered in burrs, it was time to rest for a while on the fresh bed Mum had made in the tent. Mum said she loves camping with a wet, muddy dog and spending hours picking out all the burrs and foxtails from my fur. Well, I think that was the gist of it, anyway.

Catching Up

I've had a really busy week since I last wrote. I've been wanting to tell you all about it, but Mum has been a bit under the weather after our camping trip to the far away creek (the one with the blue-green water) and hasn't had her computer open for me to use. She got bitten by a lot of no-see-ums and her face looks all funny and lumpy. That's funny-peculiar, not funny-haha, although me and Dad did have a bit of a laugh. 

I'll tell you all about my creek adventures soon, but first of all I have to tell you about the award I got from Jack.

“This award is presented to those dog bloggers out there who know the meaning of GREATNESS. Their blogs are consistently interesting, funny, or informative. Their KINDNESS is extended to others without expectation of it’s return, and their FRIENDSHIP inspires others to do EXTRAORDINARY things. These are the blogs you can’t wait to read everyday.

In short, they are AWE-INSPIRING, full of wonder, and simply PAWsome! Pass this award on to 4 others who you feel exemplify a “Paw”some Blog, and leave a note saying why you think they deserve the Pawsome Award!”

Well, I'm not surprised that Jack got the award too, because I always make Mum read his blog to me so I can see what he's been up to. He's still got a lot to learn, but he's a young pup still. I was happy to hear he's been getting a place staked out on his dad's bed recently. Good work, Jack!

We're supposed to pass this on to 4 other pups with blogs that we really enjoy, but I want to give it to every one of the blogs my mum reads to me. 

As you all know by now, Monty is my best friend in the whole world. 

He can be a bit of a goofball at times, but he's always up for a game or two and never says a cross word - even when Mum is flashing that bright light from the camera in his eyes.

When he arrives, he goes to the toy corner and picks one out. Sometimes he just likes to use it as a pillow. Here he is with my lion that I got for Christmas. Mum and Dad are very proud of me letting Monty play with my toys. I didn't complain once.

I tore the lion's head off today, so he won't be playing with that one again.