Here and There in Portland

SUMMARY: From the river to the hills.

How can I possibly miss my dogs when they have cleverly attached large portions of themselves to my clean black pants?

Walked about six blocks down to the river, then along the river for a ways. Happened upon Mill Ends Park, billed as the world's smallest park.

I couldn't even get in, just sat around outside the park and admired the landscaping.


After returning to the Hilton for lunch and a rest, I walked about 2 miles (and 500 or more feet uphill?) in the opposite direction to the Rose Garden in Washington Park specifically to get nice views like this of Mount Hood. (BTW, yesterday's volcanoes were Mount Saint Helens all blown away on one side and Mount Adams).


I have many other photos, but this slow computer defeats me. Will try to get them up when I'm home again.

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LoveYerDog AKA Bath Day

SUMMARY: Dogs are now officially clean.

According to Wikipedia:

In Scandinavian countries, Saturday is called Lördag or Löverdag etc., the name being derived from the old word laugr (hence Icelandic name Laugardagur), meaning bath, thus Lördag equates to bath-day. This is due to the Viking usage of bathing on Saturdays.

OK, today isn't Saturday (dang! that always happens! At least 6 days a week!), but we all got baths today. So when I looked up "bath day" on the web, I found the preceding quote, which says that bath day is called Loveyerdog in actual Scandinavian countries! See how appropriate that is!

I almost never bathe my beasts. Once a year maybe. They get hosed off often enough on warm agility days or muddy winter days, and they don't have greasy coats. But Boost has been scratching a lot lately and Tika's white chest has developed that dangling-tag gray, plus they're both shedding like crazy, so it was time.

But who'd have thought a mere two lady dogs could have gotten so many things wet?

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Crate Training and Sharp Dewclaws

The crate-training games proceed apace. Not only will she sit if she's standing when I put my hand on the crate, but she's getting to where she'll actually sit up if she's lying down (a tougher concept) --and it works for the plastic/wire crate, the zippered fabric crate, and the wire x-pen! So she has generalized well. I'm proofing long & longer times with her sitting there, and me being in different positions. I'm afraid maybe I'm moving too quickly, as she's starting to stand up and head for the door before the release. So I'll have to take it easy.

I started to introduce her to the Dremel tool for doing her nails. It went reasonably well the first night but somehow we jumped from one instance where she was quietly accepting of the vibrating tool touching her toenail (not the tool part yet, just the handle) to her yelping and grabbing violently at it. So the next night I worked very very very slowly and was at the point where I could hold her toenail and touch it with the vibrating handle and immediately give her a goodie without her struggling, but it took dozens and dozens of doggie junk food to get there. And in the early struggled, she slashed my wrist with one of the very dewclaws I need to trim down--they are *very* sharp puppy dewclaws, like miniature scythes.

Then yesterday there was a work crew here all day working on my yard and I never had a chance to move to the next step. Dangerous little doggie feet!

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