Harley, Holly, Lars and Gidget take their first trip to the Arroyo

Two weekends before Thanksgiving, we met Heather, Steve, Lucas and Thomas at Shadow Cliffs, and walked the dogs along the arroyo.  The arroyo is over a berm from Shadow Cliffs, and is filled by water that they let out of Del Valle reservoir.  The weekend after Thanksgiving we went back, and entered from the backside.  I am combining the pictures from both trips into this post.

Since this time, we have been several times to the arroyo, and have met a number of people we know there.  Harley loves going swimming in the arroyo.  Lars and Gidget are flirting with the idea, but aren't quite there. We are able to let the dogs off leash (legal), and Harley and Holly behave quite well. For puppies, Lars and Gidget are doing extremely well, but still don't "come" when they are called as readily as we would all like.

In the future, we hope that Kimber and her family, and Jade and her family will be able to join us for walks like this.  Many thanks to Jim for taking the time to meet Harley, Lars and me, and showing us all of the great places to go!

The first time we took our visit, we had Harley, Lars and Gidget swimming in the lake.  We later found out that isn't okay, so we now take them over the berm.  Here I am with Harley and Lars at Shadow Cliffs, while we wait for the Babati family:

November 14, 2010 -- here I am with Lars and Harley at Shadow Cliffs. 
Our first trip to the arroyo, where they can be off leash!  Thank you,
Curtis and Thomas, for taking all of these pictures!

November 14, 2010.  At Shadow Cliffs with Lars.  It turns out dogs aren't
supposed to be off leash here, so now we visit the back side, over the
berm, where it is okay to have dogs off leash.

November 14, 2010.  Gidget is so happy to see her Daddy!

November 14, 2010.  Curtis, Heather and Steve, with Harley and Gidget.



November 14, 2010.  Thank you, Thomas, for this picture!  Denise,
Curtis, Heather, Steve and Lucas with Holly, Lars, Gidget, and Harley.



November 14, 2010.  At the arroyo. 



November 14, 2010.  Gidget wants to play in the water with Harley and Lars!



November 14, 2010.  Heather and me with Holly, Lars, and Harley. 
Now we let them off the leash, but this first trip we were quite cautious.

Curtis took this movie of Harley, Lars and Gidget playing in the lake.  We were concerned about letting Holly off the leash, and you can hear here crying in the background, because she so badly wants to join in the fun.  We are now able to let her off leash, and she is perhaps the most faithful of all of the dogs.  All she wants is to be next to me, and to have somebody chuck the tennis ball for her.  Anyway, look at what a great time the dogs are having!

November 14, 2010.  Sunset at Shadow Cliffs.  We have dirty, tired, but
happy dogs.  Thomas and Heather pose for a sunset picture.

November 14, 2010.  Curtis sets the auto timer on his camera, and we
all get in the picture.  It is sunset at Shadow Cliffs.  The dogs have
walked, played in the lake, and chased the geese.
Time to go home and bathe them!

November 15, 2010.  Here is baby Lars!

Two weeks later, we went back, and we entered from the arroyo side, off of Old Vineyard Ave.  We let the dogs play in the big, open field before we went down into the arroyo, trying to take the edge off of their energy levels.  Who should we run into, but my good friend Inge, who was there with Bruce and Ellen Hammel.  Then, later, we ran into Libby, who had Dixie with her!  It was like a reunion of old friends!

Harley loves the dog "watering hole", where there is a nice, shallow entry into the arroyo.  Lots of dogs swim out and retrieve items thrown in for them.  Harley isn't really interested in retrieving, just in swimming out to the items.  Here he is swimming in the arroyo:

November 28, 2010.  Harley at the arroyo swimming hole.  He is having a blast!

November 28, 2010.  Harley swimming at the arroyo.

November 28, 2010.  Lars decides he wants to swim with Harley!

November 28, 2010.  Lucas with Gidget on our arroyo trip.
Gidget doesn't look very happy here, but she definitely
had a good time!

November 28, 2010.  Here is my beautiful Harley and Holly!

In case you are concerned that the dogs didn't have a good time together, I have included this short video clip near the end of our walk on November 28, 2010, courtesy of Curtis.  The order of who follows whom has become our mantra.  Holly follows the ball; Lars follows Holly; Gidget follows Lars.  Harley does his own thing.  Even Thomas is well indoctrinated into this mantra.  The moral of the story:  if Lars or Gidget is mis-behaving, call Holly.  Lars will follow Holly, and Gidget will follow Lars!

We have taken this walk a number of times now, and look forward to the dogs being the best behaved ones around, so that they can have lots of fun and freedom!

Next blog post will be of Thanksgiving.  My apologies that I am so far behind, but I am still determined to catch up!

Does my teensy-weensy baby Lars have growing pains, or is something else the matter?

Oh my gosh, this has been a rough week.  So many difficulties!  But ... pehaps my biggest concern right now is our baby Lars.  Andrew thought he broke his nose in rugby practice last week, but it turns out that he deviated his septum without a fracture.  He isn't interested in having it taken care of until the season is over.  My Dad has had eyesight difficulties, but those are being worked.  My sister's in-laws got stuck in Egypt, and her father-in-law was quite ill (and hospitalized) when they got out.  He is now out of the hospital and thankfully on the mend.

And my baby Lars is suffering from growing pains ... or something worse.  Last Sunday, we were out walking, and were about two miles from home when he winced in pain, and sort of crumpled to the ground.  He refused to put his left rear paw down.  I called Curtis on my cell (thankfully I had it with me), and he came and picked us up.

Since then, Lars has been depressed, moping, not eating, and not interested in interacting with other dogs.  (Even at puppy school yesterday he ignored Gidget!)  Since last weekend, he has lost 8 lbs., and is painfully thin.  On top of it, he has grown, which makes matters worse.

Now, we suffered through this with Harley -- he had three episodes of growing pains.  Each time I took him to the vet, and  $500-$1000 later he was diagnosed with growing pains.  And you just have to wait it out.

Now, what is the "official" definition of growing pains?  Here you go:

*******************  Definition of growing pains:  *********************
"Growing pains" are symptoms most often affecting medium, large, and giant breeds of dog: those breeds that are usually subjected to rapid growth periods within their first year of development. Symptoms of pain and lameness can be the result of any trauma to bones, joints, or the supporting soft tissues, but often they are caused by specific diseases of the bone.
During normal growth and development, cartilage growth precedes bone formation. The cartilage grows and becomes calcified. Vessels from the bone marrow invade this calcified layer of cartilage. Some of the calcified cartilage is resorbed, but some remains and is used as a framework for the bone.
In instances of bone disease, one or more of these steps is interrupted and the formation of bone ceases or causes a defect if bone formation continues. Exposure of incompletely formed or abnormally formed bone to pressure and tension resulting from movement causes symptoms of pain and lameness.

**********************************************************************

My poor baby Lars!  He weighed more than Harley last weekend, is about an inch taller than Harley at the shoulder (maybe 2" taller now), and is much, much thinner than Harley.

So -- if he hasn't improved by Friday, I will take him to the vet.  That will be 12 days.  But, I think he is improving.  He is starting to show interest in Harley and Holly again.  I also gave him a leftover pain pill from one of the dogs, and his mood seems to be better.  But there is a danger there -- he might not know when he is further injuring himself!

Hopefully nothing more serious is wrong with Lars.  So I will wait it out until Friday, unless he starts to go downhill.  Keep your fingers crossed that this will pass soon!

December 31, 2010:  Teensy-weensy baby Lars is already
bigger than his daddy Harley, who is bigger than his mommy
Holly.  The vet thinks Lars will grow to be about 120 lbs.
He is definitely our gentle giant and we love him dearly!

February 6, 2011.  Lars has really grown these past few weeks, and is quite
a bit larger than Harley.  This is about all he does these days.  Wish us luck
in getting through this, and hopefully that will happen soon!