Longest Operation Phat Yet!

We took Finn to Brookhaven State Park, where we have had varied success in the past.  

Hubby convinced me that instead of doing the usual BLUE 

1.7 mile trail with Finn, we should up it to the RED 3.7 mile trail.  

Well, it seemed as good of a time as any, so off we went.

Sometimes you gotta just follow the tail!

Can you see that in the middle??

A deer!  We saw quite a few, here are some tracks.

3.7 miles of nice woods.

C'mon slowpokes!

What?  Is someone trying to pour me some water here?

I am trained to look at the camera!

Little father/daughter time during a rest.

She did really well!  We knew she was getting a little tired towards the

end, but I am glad we decided to up the walking length!

Grumman Memorial Park

Hewwwow!  Finnackles here.  I wanna show you a little trip my Momma and 

I took one rainy Saturday.  We headed out for a little ride to the Grumman Memorial Park.  

Do you know about Grumman?  If you are an American and are proud of our WWII 

vets and the advancements we made during the Space Race, you should.  Even though 

wiki is what wiki is, click here for a little history about Grumman.

Here we are!  Momma said it's important to learn about history stuffs, 

so off we went to read about some of the stuffs they had out.

Missiles:

Runway gear:

Then Momma let me practice jumping and down off things 

because I needed a reading break...

Yowsa!  Look at that!

And this!

And this:

In case you can't read it, it says:

In honor of the men and women of Grumman who served in the armed forces of the United States and in memory of those who made the supreme sacrifice in World War II.

1941-1945

Operation Phat - The Secret Path

See this opening here?

This opening has caused Momma such shame.  She and Pops have been living in their house for two years, and she just now noticed this opening.  It is essentially around the corner from her house, and she didn't even notice the path that cut through it!  Silly Momma.  So, off we went to explore...

Look at these little hills.  What could they be for?

Finn heads down one to investigate.

Hmmm - which way to go?  To the left or to the right?

We chose to the right and almost immediately got run over by an ATV!  Ah-ha!  Hence the man-made hills!  So, we went to the left and quickly discovered we had popped out...

...in the next neighborhood!  

So, directly across the street, the path continued, and we followed along.  We were behind some house, and a dog came over and started barking at us, and Finn gave me the sign to turn around go back home, so we did.  But we shall venture to the right again and see where that leads us!  Till next time!

The Dog Walker

First, I'd like to say that Finn is doing much much better now.  She's eating normally and she has gone on a couple of 20 minute walks and seems to be more peppy.  Thank goodness!  We are unsure about how to proceed with finding a new vet.  But we are mulling it over, and of course, we shall let you know.  Thank you for all of your kind words!

Now, our regularly scheduled post for today was this:

We've hired a dog walker!...kind of.  She has come twice.  The first time, we asked her to give Finn a walk at about 2 in the afternoon.  When we got home that night, we thought Finn was ramped up a tad bit more than normal.  She had chewed her way into a cardboard box, behavior we hadn't seen in her for months and months.

The second time, we asked her to give Finn dinner and let her out, since we were at an evening family event on a weekend.  When we got home, we thought she would be asleep, but she wasn't.  I felt like she was waiting at the door for us.

I am sure this has nothing to do with the dog walker herself.  She came to us highly recommended, and Finn just adored her when we met with her before we hired her.

Do you use a dog walker?  How often do you use him or her?  Any behavioral side effects?  I feel like the more we use her, the more used to her/the situation/the midday walk she will be.  Any suggestions?

Sans Souci County Park

"Sans Souci" - French for "Without Worries"  

You know when you think you are going to have everything under control and then it just turns out the complete opposite of how you would expect it to be?

For instance, going to a park with a name like "Without Worries" 

should be an enjoyable spring morning.

But...

First, we couldn't find the entrance.  Yep, it's clearly marked, as you can see here, but I drove right past it.  And then went down a side street to try to find it and wound up parking in front of someone's house before I realized that I had to have missed the entrance.  And then that person came out and stared at me wondering why I was camped out in front of their house.  Thank goodness for my little foursquare checkin which told me I was about .6 miles from the entrance.  Oops.  Try again!

Okay, off we go.  Lovely hiking trails.

Except Finn just didn't want to go in.  Oh, she made a little effort...maybe trotted herself in about 300 feet.  And then turned around and went straight back to the car.  So, we tried again and again, but she just had no desire to go into the park.

So, we just spent the morning sniffing around the parking lot...

Letting the wind blow through our golden locks in the parking lot...

And then sniffing our way over to the fire department, located right next to the park...

And then dragging me back to the car.

No worries!

Bald Hill

Well, the vet told us that Finnie was fat, and not the kind with a "ph", although I certainly think she's phat, but I digress.  So, we must get more exercise!  Off to a new place we go!

I drove past Bald Hill one day and wondered exactly what is was.  

After a little googling, I discovered it is one of the tallest points in our area.  

A Memorial was built here in 1991 as well.

Pretty! Well, essentially, the park is a large hill, go figure.  And the memorial is on top.

But another new place to sniff and poke around!

If that's not a "Thanks-Momma-for-taking-me-here" face, then I don't know what is!

Anyway, so hopefully we'll be getting in plenty of new 

walks soon as we begin Operation Phat!

Christmas Eve Walk

On Christmas Eve, we decided to take a walk here...

We saw a lot of this...

and this...

And did some of this...

And a lot of this!

Yes, tons of smiles!  

The Leash and the Promise

Finn doesn't fetch sticks, she chews them.  Oh Finn.

Well, you may have noticed that I have reverted back to using this leash, which has a nice hand grip close to the clasp.  About a month ago, I realized that Finn had no idea of what the heel command meant.  I realized this when she dragged me about twenty feet to attempt to jump on a disabled child getting onto a bus.  There is no excuse for that type of behavior.  

I promised myself and Finn that we would become more controlled during our walks.  And I promised myself I would blog a post about it too, because you have to take the bad with the good, right?  So, for the past month, we have been working on being a better walker on the leash.  I made certain of five simple rules, which I wrote down so that I could remember them every time we walk:

1.  I will leave and come into the the house first, she will follow me.

2.  I will call her to come to me  when I put the leash on.

3.  We will use our key phrase, "Do you want to go for a walkie?", to signal it's time to head out.

4.  If I feel her pulling me, I will stop walking and command she stays and sits while I am stopped.

5.  She will not walk ahead of me.  I will reward her when she walks to my side.

I have to say, this past month has been an eye opener.  It took about two weeks to get the command "heel" to work with any sort of regularity, and the only time she really pulls me now is when she sees another dog being walked or when she sniffs out a pile of poopsies left behind by another dog.  Both behaviors I can completely understand, but I am working on getting those to stop too.  We are at a point now where we can walk past people without any pulling, and in general, she isn't walking in front of me anymore.  I feel so relieved and I am so glad we are at this point!  It's taken us a while, but we needed to get there.

Sagamore Hill

As promised, I took Finn on a walk to a new place this week.  I decided on Sagamore Hill, the summer residence of our fine President Theodore Roosevelt.  Now a National Historical Park, the building is closed for a two-year renovation, and we can't wait to see what it will be like when it re-opens!

On to our walk!  I packed extra treats, but we didn't even need them!  When we got out of the car, Finn just jumped right out and was ready for anything.  Good thing, because we ran into these - three wild turkeys!  Finn definitely wanted a piece of the action!

Here is the summer house, and proof that Finn was there!

And finally Teddy Jr's house which he built there in 1938.  Finn was definitely curious about that big truck.  We watched it pull into the main parking lot and drive all the way around to this little building.  Wonder what they're doing!

I'd say she had a good time!