A light June

The month of June saw us slow down a little. We did finally get to start our hike to Mount Ellinor with the roads being accessible. There are two trails, a long one that winds a couple miles thru forest and short a short one that has none of the pleasant hiking experience, just the verticle aspect of reaching the top of Mount Ellinor. Kiwi's first trip was on the long trail. The two pictures below show the "Chute" at Ellinor. The Chute is a very steep climb, and best ascended with mountain gear (ice axes & cramp-ons). You can actually see people going up the Chute in the second photo (they are the little specks, LOL) With Kiwi not being able to understand the weather report on the local news, yet, we were not prepared to tackle the chute on this trip. Safety comes first.

So what did we do to make up for the extra time? We did some house cleaning. With Kiwi assigned to remove all empty boxes to the recycle. Here you can see how thorough a job Kiwi does when assigned such a difficult task. She knows the good trash folk won't pick up any recycleables unless they are cleaned. Well, as seen below, Kiwi is doing her darnedest to comply with those recycling requirments. One of the "jobs" Kiwi enjoys is actually taking out the recyclable material to the bins. Roll up a magazine, squish a soda can or what-not and tell her "recycle" and she perks right up, takes the object in her mouth and will carry out to the container and drop it in. She actually loves doing this, gets so happy and rewarded of course. Now just to teach her which recycle goes in which bin: plastic, paper or metal and to open doors. Well maybe not to open doors. :-)


Part of Kiwi's socialization and training occurs at the local Petsmart. She is really lucky to have a wonderful instructor by the name of Kelly, who spent time at Sea World as one their animal trainers. One of the early problems I had in socializing Kiwi was my fault all the way. Kiwi wears a prong collar and responds well to its proper use. But when seeing and greeting other dogs, Kiwi would strain and lean forward to meet and greet, but I would be overly cautious and keep the leash tight in case the situation turned sour. Well, my energy of anxiety and Kiwi leaning into the prong collar caused Kiwi, as Kelly astutely point out, to be aggressive. She was unknowingly placing the pain and my energy onto the other dog. Kelly suggested a flat collar. So we tried it out at the dog park and sure enough, no aggression. Actually Kiwi was rather submissive with the other dogs. So now when we are out and about wearing the prong and an encounter is immenent, I will loosen any tension both in myself and in the leash. This has helped a lot and enable Kiwi to meet and greet more naturally. As she matures, Kiwi has become more "dominating" and will take a swipe at an ear for those dog-only-knows reasons. She minds the corrections and can behave with supervision. I just associate the behavior with adolescence and the breed. Any thoughts?

A couple of weeks of warm weather and Kiwi is anxious to retry Mount Ellinor. This trip we drive up the upper hike trail-head. The day was great. Sunny, seventies, and soaked with Northwest splendor. Well we knew what lay before us with climbing the Chute, so we just put paw in front of the other and took our time. Here is Kiwi about halfway up the Chute. Lake Cushman and the Puget Sound provides the backdrop. I cropped this picture and have it as my desktop wallpaper.

As we continued up Kiwi lead the way to a small ridge that had more great views. So I whipped out the camera and started snapping pics. At the same time a small goat family from below also joined us on the ridge. First time for Kiwi and I with wild animals of this size at this distance. The goats kept walking in their original direction, but one of the parents made a bluff-charge at Kiwi. Kiwi, before, during and after, never made a sound, no hackles up, nothing, just alert, focused and quiet. The bluff-charge stopped short about 4-6 feet of Kiwi. I could have made a diamond from a charcoal briquet. Fortunately, just the one charge and then the goats ambled off. While I was trying to get my stomach back in place, Kiwi looked at me like, "Hey, cool Dad. Anything else?"While at the top we took in the magnificent 360 degree views. Able to see Mount Baker, Mount Rainier, and even Mount Saint Helens, the volcano. Seattle across the Puget Sound was visible, including the famous Space Needle. To the west were the Olympic Mountains. Fantastic time at the top. Kiwi explored with the little rock squirrels and gave serious study time to the other furry animals, that I'm sure she thought needed herding. :-) Have to admit a little pride in Kiwi, in that she never barked, growled or did anything but exhibit polite canine citizenship.