Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Exploring The Creek

Few days ago we took the Love puppies aka Cora, Finn and Toly-Rose, and of course their mom Lucky, for a trip. Not that we drove a car somewhere, but our usual puppy walks are around half an hour long. This time we headed out into a new direction for the munchkins and explored a bit for an hour and a half. 

The goal was to reach the nearby creek, by conquering the melting snow and getting over many obstacles such as rotting trees, laying across the path, which once used to be a narrow power line, now abandoned, grown over by thick brush at places and visited mostly by deer and our other wild neighbors.

 
First, a little warm up at the garden :)



Then a little practice of jumping over dead trees and other stuff, on the meadow.


And into the wild! :)


The rotting trees where highly appreciated by the kids. They loved jumping and running back and forth, so we stopped for a while, taking pictures, shooting a short video and mainly "practicing" a little with the little guys. Who knows, maybe one day they might try their paws at agility....:)





 They seem quite skilled jumpers for sure! :)


Our little Miss Wild & Crazy Cora. After jumping over obstacles, she decided it was time to SIT ON TOP of obstacles :) She´s such a smart, crazy girl. Her zest for life is so infectious!


And a bit of obedience practice. What can be a better environment, full of distractions, than the wild woods that surround us?


 

The deeper we got into the thick forest and neared the creek, the more remaining snow we found. And the kids of course loved it, using it for some wild and free, full speed running.



The creek was very busy, rushing it´s waters down the hill toward the Vattudalen lake.

It was a completely new experience for the little ones, open and running water wasn´t something they would know during their first three months of live, being born in the middle of winter.

At first glance, they were surprised, but very curious, although cautious. Smart babies!




It was cool to see them how they interact with this new "thing". They watched us carefully, and did what they saw us doing. A complete trust. When Jachym jumped over to the other side, Finn went immediately, without hesitation after him. Soon they will be running through the water and jumping back and forth :)










It´s amazing seeing them trust us and follow us as their pack leaders. They are strongly bonded to humans and take every new experience with an awesome stride.


On the way back, I let Jachym with Lucky (this time on the leash most of the way, as we have a deer couple hanging around) and the kids go ahead, and hid quite some distance off the path, behind a large fallen spruce. Then I called them up. It was the first time I let them go so far away from me and first time I hid myself so far and well. It was a great game, it took the kids quite a while to find me. At first they were quite confused when they heard me call them but had no traces of me when they kept running back on the path. Cora got my scent first and the moment she "switched her nose ON", she dove down the hill, the correct direction, straight towards my hiding spot.
Toly Rose followed closely from another direction and poor little Finn passed all three of us and took him a while to spot us. The happier he was when he finally spotted "mom". :)

Lucky is an expert in finding me in the woods, and she always gets super excited when we unite, dancing around and swirling. But today we were afraid she could take off after the deer nearby.


I also told Toly to "lead" us out of the hideway back onto the path, as she is quite the little explorer. She is so cool, finding paths and clearings and is an independent gal. So different from Cora, but definitely very interesting character as well.
And she did lead us back onto the path, in a quite clever, well thought out way!



When we hit a nice sunny, drier spot, we took a little break. The kids immediately settled for games such as finding sticks, cones and other treasures, chewing them and wrestling over them.






Now the plan is to do more leash training so we can take them further and for trips across the road. Stay tuned for their next adventures! :)

2 comments:

Nar said...

Great read and pics! Thanks! :-) So cool they trust and follow and learn so fast&in a fun way! :)

Finn said...

Look at them GO! What a great adventure.