Gathering Of The Clan

Another weekend of family eating, drinking and frivolity is in the record books.  Three generations of our immediate tribe gathering outside of a holiday, wedding, funeral or other family event.   And the monsoons paused just long enough to smoke chicken and ribs on Friday and make a batch of brick oven pizzas Saturday.  Today dawned sunny and bright.

It can stop with the rain now.

Anyway, now that the dog hair has been swept, bedding laundered, garbage bagged; some evidence worth sharing....

 

 

Thundering Paws

 
Pure joy manifest in these Labs.  Have you ever seen a happier pair of dogs?

Rounding the turn on the trail north from the house...

 

The Trouble With Labs

The other day I was watching the 10 PM network news when I heard a rustling commotion coming from the bedroom.

click on the dog to enlarge

Her Highness had jumped-up on the bed and proceeded to disassemble a tidy and carefully made bed so she could make a dog nest for herself.

Had she been allowed to continue the state of the bedding would be in shambles.

Canine Chaos Theory

If I take the four wheeler out for a spin the dogs just have to come along.  The mere sound of the staccato thrum of the motor propelling the Polaris will send them into a frenzy of barking commotion.

It really is so chaotic that they only way to reduce the likelihood of toppled furnishings is to carefully and discretely stage the event.

Begin by leaving a pistol and SD cards on the kitchen counter the evening before.  Casually dress for outdoors ask The Frau to distract (or hold) the dogs and leave thru the overhead door of the garage.  Start the ATV and drive to the garage entrance while the dogs are fitted with their e-collars.

Let slip the hounds. 

Crazy Labs

Oftentimes when I run the dogs with the four wheeler they'll grab a stick and run together with it like a team of horses.  Side by side, full-tilt with neither relinquishing control of the stick.  They are crazy dogs.

On rare occasions I've managed to stop and after fishing-out my smart phone take some video of this behavior while navigating the trails one-handed.  More often than not it is precisely at this moment that the dogs stop, drop the stick and look at me for direction.  

This afternoon I ran the dogs with the Polaris and sure as shit they grabbed a stick and did their team of horses shtick.  I momentarily thought of pausing and fetching the phone from my pocket to shoot some video but decided against it.  I figured they'd drop the stick as soon as I paused to do so.

Today they ran with their stick side by side for almost a half mile before giving-up on the game.  Fortunately one of the trail cameras caught an action shot...

click on image to enlarge