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Massey Monday: Morning Patrol

Early morning walks make for lots of early morning noises, early morning smells, early morning critters out doing early morning things. Massey has to stalk, calculate, then decide which of these early morning stimulants she's going to take. And then, its game on in the form of a full-out sprint. In the moments before her eruption of energy, she's quite photogenic, despite the fact that she's always patrolling ahead of me and, therefore, never looking at me.

Massey Monday: Spotted Mountain Goat

Massey loved her little trip to the Sierra backcountry. She was such a rockstar in the woods...chasing birds and pikas but never strayed to far and always came back. She loved scaling these granite rock formations, too. She would bound and scramble up them like a little spotted mountain goat! It's true, my dog is more athletic than me.

Massey Monday: Conversations

Massey loved her weekend in the Sierra. This scene is from the far side of Convict Lake. Convict Creek fingers out before it dumps into the lake, and this boardwalk helps to keep a hiker's boots dry. Massey doesn't mind getting wet though...she loved these little mountain streams. Terry and Massey had a quick conversation before she unleashed her energy on the shady grove of aspens and cottonwoods fingered with rushing mountain run-off.

Massey Monday: Excitement

I've taken too many pictures of her over this last week. I'm sure I'll eventually end up being posting them as a Massey Monday; but, I think, this picture sums up Massey's Colorado experience. As much as she misses her Ft. Ord stomping grounds, I'm sure she doesn't want to go back just yet (and neither do we). Too much fun.

Massey Monday: Splash

So, there's only one picture this Monday and neither Beth nor I took it. Let me take a moment give you the background. We (i.e., the family) were out for a hike somewhere near Leadville, CO. The trail winded around a beautiful mountain lake and up the side of a mountain. Of course, the Masalicous was running up, down, and all around the trail. We hiked around the lake and up half of the mountain. On our way down, we decided to complete the hike around the other side of the trail. Massey, of course, has already gotten wet in some of the shallow parts of the lake, so she must know how cold the water is. And, then it happened. We were on a single track trail and a bird (probably a duck) flew over and she was off. . . determined to catch it. Unfortunately, for us, we lost sight of her in the tall grass. The bird, however, remained in plain sight. I think we all kind of had the same thought. . . that bird is headed for the middle of the lake. We could see the bird clear the grasses on the shore and then we heard it: SPLASH! I can only image the sight of a little brittany spaniel chasing a bird through some tall grass and leaping into the cold water in a last ditch effort catch the bird. The picture was taken by my Mom (Marie) when Massey decided to come back and let us know she hadn't caught the bird but that she had given it her all.

Happy Monday from Colorado!

Massey Monday: Kisses

I feel like Massey Monday was getting a little heavy on the "sleeping" and "running" versions of Massey. Today I give you a little glimpse of what she's like when Terry comes home from work each afternoon. Its like she hasn't seen him for years. One of these days her little tail is going to waggle right off, but at least Terry gets a good face washing after a long day at work.

Massey Monday: Chasing Meadowlarks

Taking Massey for a hike follows nearly the same pattern every time. We hop in the car and she knows every turn to get to the trailhead. She excitedly whines just a little as we approach each intersection enroute; a little reminder just in case I forgot how to get there. We get out and she dashes about 20 steps up the trail...and promptly drops a lovely present in the trail. Fortunately this happens every time, so we know to be prepared with a poop bag. Then it's full on hunting time. First, she walks slowly, ears perked, surveying, stalking.

Suddenly she erupts. The chase is on. The early chases are usually a bunny or a big bird (see the hawk?!) that she really has no chance of catching. The bunnies dive into a thicket or the hawks just float on the thermal winds high above the ground, well out of reach.

After a few all-out quarter-mile sprints (while I hold my breath and hope she doesn't lodge a foxtail in her ear), she chills a bit and waits. She knows she'll find some quail or some smaller birds to chase if she's patient.

This week it was the meadowlarks. They constantly sang as we walked. Their distinctively familiar song reminded me of being back home in Iowa. As the sun heated the golden hillsides, the wind began to stir the grasses and the little birds took flight, swirling and swooping over the tall grass. Our little dog took chase. If you look closely at the photo below, you can see a meadowlark just above the hill in the background.

She was one happy and tired dog by the end of the hike.