dogs: lab meets water

[kellan_the_tabby]

[ Remy, a big black dog with a white chest, is flopped in his crate, which is in the van. He’s wearing a blue halter and looking very alert. ]

Or not, because despite being approximately a quarter lab, Remy DOES NOT LIKE water.

But we were at Fountain Creek, & I wanted to look for creek glass, & Remy was bored, & it was too snowy & muddy for Loiosh (who was BIG MAD but wound up napping about it), so I stuck a leash on Remy & off we went.

They’ve done a lot of work on Fountain Creek in the last several years to help deal with flooding, & maybe half of that is still there (the rest got flooded away), so my usual haunts had gotten VERY rearranged. Add to that the part where, while I don’t mind walking in snow, it’s hard to find creek glass that way, there was really only one place I could get to, & even that spot was tricky.

Remy got his paws wet & also learned that the ground is not always the ground, by which I mean that sometimes trying to stand on snow can be tricky. Plus, you know, running water, & he was definitely at least unnerved. But he was also having a good time, so onward we went.

& finally got to a nice gravel bank, maybe fifty feet wide and a couple hundred feet long, just barely above water level, the perfect spot to find creek glass.

& the first piece I found? Rare blue, an EXCELLENT omen.

I showed it to Remy, so he knew what we were looking for. He tried to eat it.

He also found trash & tried to eat that, but I’m quick. (No I’m not, I took pictures & then hauled him away, I’m just glad he wanted to sniff it good first.)

[ Remy’s standing on a gravel-scattered mud bank, sniffing carefully at what might have once been an orange juice carton. That’s a guess. ]

Some of the time he was VERY EXCITE, smelling everything, pricking ears at birds and cars and the wind and the water, & generally having a LOVELY time.

[ Remy’s staring off into the distance. The distance consists of a broad, shallow creek, more mudflats, and, on the horizon, trees. ]

But several times he got kinda freaked out, & needed reassurance. He is easily reassured by shoving himself up against a human & getting squished. So I squished him. He made it easy.

[ Remy butt, seen from above. The blur across the bottom of the pic is my belly, because he shoved himself between my legs so I could squish him. ]

He made it easy enough that I could squish him AND take pictures, which is the best way for this kind of thing to go.

No pics of the way back to the van, because I was exhausted & it was through, like, a foot of snow. But Remy learned how much fun it is dancing through a foot of VERY fluffy snow! & then he was very tired & we all had a nap.

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Comments

[chanter1944]

Awww, Remy. *pets*

Lab meets snow? XD Sounds like he's got the 'joy of running in the snow' labby thing down, at least!

Rare blue creek glass, oooooh. Whatcha making with it? Do you know yet?

[siliconshaman]

Huh.. I never thought of it before but I think I accidentally trained Penny, the golden retriever we had as family dog when I was growing up, to hunt for sea glass. I praised her a couple of times when she found a nice bit, and thereafter whenever we went for a walk along the shore she'd run around and come back with a bit every few minutes. I just thought it was a dog thing...see shiny, pick it up and show it off.. you know. She'd do that with drift wood and sea shells too... I totally could've done some fun wire wraps and muddles if I'd known as a kid they were a thing!

Never knew creek glass was a thing though, but I should've realised it would be. Live and learn.

[danabren]

I showed it to Remy, so he knew what we were looking for. He tried to eat it.

And that right there is all you need to know about a dog LOL

[meridian_rose]

I have some blue seaglass which I love, so I understand the excitement about finding rare blue creek glass :)
I especially love the photo of Remy staring over the water :)