Sunday, March 04, 2012
Another hike,
Cici enjoyed the hike a lot
View towards the pass, the little mountain in the distance towards the right is where the pass is. To go from Las Vegas to Pahrump. The pass is over 6000 feet
No wildflowers yet
Hiking in the foothills, I really don't know how high we were there, this is just a bit below the pass, so my guess is between 4000 and 5000 feet maybe
Me and Cici, Cheri hasn't perfected the art of making me look skinny, we gotta work on that next time we go hiking
Cheri's new dog Reese, he is a very sweet boy, a little over a year old and a very pretty brindle color. I thought he looks like a brindle Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, which of course is not a color they normally come in, but that's what he reminds me of. Cici was fairly tolerant of him as long as he wasn't paying her too much attention, whenver he did, she told him to move on - or else.
This thistle is growing sideways out of a vertical rock
Cici enjoyed the hike a lot
View towards the pass, the little mountain in the distance towards the right is where the pass is. To go from Las Vegas to Pahrump. The pass is over 6000 feet
No wildflowers yet
Hiking in the foothills, I really don't know how high we were there, this is just a bit below the pass, so my guess is between 4000 and 5000 feet maybe
Me and Cici, Cheri hasn't perfected the art of making me look skinny, we gotta work on that next time we go hiking
Cheri's new dog Reese, he is a very sweet boy, a little over a year old and a very pretty brindle color. I thought he looks like a brindle Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, which of course is not a color they normally come in, but that's what he reminds me of. Cici was fairly tolerant of him as long as he wasn't paying her too much attention, whenver he did, she told him to move on - or else.
This thistle is growing sideways out of a vertical rock 
Hiking in the nearby desert,
That's me and Prince
One more
Deb and The Wendy, for anybody who is curious about Wendy's breed, she is an Airedale Terrier
Prince, 4 years old
View towards Tecopa, California and to the right in the distance is Pahrump, Nevada
along the trail
The Wendy and Prince
Wendy and Prince taking a break, they got along fine, actually neither paid much attention to the other, worked out great
more of the scenery along the trail
That's me and Prince
One more
Deb and The Wendy, for anybody who is curious about Wendy's breed, she is an Airedale Terrier
Prince, 4 years old
View towards Tecopa, California and to the right in the distance is Pahrump, Nevada
along the trail
The Wendy and Prince
Wendy and Prince taking a break, they got along fine, actually neither paid much attention to the other, worked out great
more of the scenery along the traill
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Shopping Trip into Las Vegas,
Every 6 to 8 weeks I make a trip into Las Vegas to Costco to stock up on dog food and other items. From our house to Costco it takes just under 1 1/2 hours. It is a very scenic trip once I leave our little town behind. It takes me alongside the mountain range that we see from our house, with miles and miles of views of the open desert and the mountains on the other side. Then the trip takes me over the pass at Mt Potosi which is around 6000 feet, once I am over the pass it goes downhill on Blue Diamond Road with beautiful views of the Red Rock Canyon area. To get to Costco, I take the scenic Road through Red Rock Canyon as the Costco is just 5 minutes outside that area. None of those pictures were actually taken today, but I did see a few of the wild burros and it was as beautiful as ever.
Burros on the roadside. This is the road that goes through Red Rock Canyon National Preservation Area. Those same burros I actually saw today as I recognized this little group of a very dark male, a young male and a female, probably his mother. I took this and the next picture 6 weeks ago
A Jolla cactus
Nanuk next to a barrel cactus
Globe mallows in bloom
Close up of Globe Mallows.
I am not sure but I believe these are called Desert Anemone
Burros browsing along the roadside
Burro hidden in the bushes
Mother and youngster in winter coat. The ones I saw today had a beautiful shiny sommer coat. Makes me wonder how they have such a sleek, shiny coat with nobody brushing them or feeding them anything special.
Years ago I was hiking alone in this area and out of nowhere a herd of burros appeared and I was quite surrounded by burros who looked at me rather demanding for food. I never feed burros and I didn't carry anything with me that I could have given them, I couldn't leave as they where all around me, so I picked up a few rocks and threw them away from me in the opposite direction of where I needed to go, they all headed for the rocks hoping I had tossed them some goodies, and I headed quickly the other way.
this picture was taken when the first morning sun hit the mountains, note the shade in the foreground which receded as the sun rose higher.
another early morning picture
another one
a little bit later the same morning
same area as the light keeps changing
pretty yellow flowers
bush with blue flowers in foreground
I love our desert, there is a lot of beauty if one looks a bit closer
this was in early summer when everything was green after some spring rains
Every 6 to 8 weeks I make a trip into Las Vegas to Costco to stock up on dog food and other items. From our house to Costco it takes just under 1 1/2 hours. It is a very scenic trip once I leave our little town behind. It takes me alongside the mountain range that we see from our house, with miles and miles of views of the open desert and the mountains on the other side. Then the trip takes me over the pass at Mt Potosi which is around 6000 feet, once I am over the pass it goes downhill on Blue Diamond Road with beautiful views of the Red Rock Canyon area. To get to Costco, I take the scenic Road through Red Rock Canyon as the Costco is just 5 minutes outside that area. None of those pictures were actually taken today, but I did see a few of the wild burros and it was as beautiful as ever.
Burros on the roadside. This is the road that goes through Red Rock Canyon National Preservation Area. Those same burros I actually saw today as I recognized this little group of a very dark male, a young male and a female, probably his mother. I took this and the next picture 6 weeks ago
A Jolla cactus
Nanuk next to a barrel cactus
Globe mallows in bloom
Close up of Globe Mallows.
I am not sure but I believe these are called Desert Anemone
Burros browsing along the roadside
Burro hidden in the bushes
Mother and youngster in winter coat. The ones I saw today had a beautiful shiny sommer coat. Makes me wonder how they have such a sleek, shiny coat with nobody brushing them or feeding them anything special.
Years ago I was hiking alone in this area and out of nowhere a herd of burros appeared and I was quite surrounded by burros who looked at me rather demanding for food. I never feed burros and I didn't carry anything with me that I could have given them, I couldn't leave as they where all around me, so I picked up a few rocks and threw them away from me in the opposite direction of where I needed to go, they all headed for the rocks hoping I had tossed them some goodies, and I headed quickly the other way.
this picture was taken when the first morning sun hit the mountains, note the shade in the foreground which receded as the sun rose higher.
another early morning picture
another one
a little bit later the same morning
same area as the light keeps changing
pretty yellow flowers
bush with blue flowers in foreground
I love our desert, there is a lot of beauty if one looks a bit closer
this was in early summer when everything was green after some spring rains
Monday, June 20, 2011
Nanuk's 10 th Birthday
Nanuk celebrated his 10th birthday yesterday. He is still very active and he is still my very valued property guardian, nothing escapes him, wether it's a neighbor going for a ride or a raven flying too low or a loose dog on the horizon.
I am happy to say that up until now he has been pretty healthy with only some minor issues. He has had some issues with what I believe his knees for many years but it had not really slowed him down, the only time it is noticable is when he wants to lie down, it takes him a while to get into the right position to lower himself, but he has no problems getting up. Last fall we started him on an NSAID medication to help with pain and inflammation and it has made a difference in his overall activity level, I also give him at least 6 fishoil capsules a day and we have recently started giving him Adequan shots, I hope to maintain his mobility with this regimen together with keeping him lean and plenty of exercise.
here he is a bit miffed because I made him get up from the porch and he wants to lie down again, he wouldn't stand for me nicely, so here is a pic of him in the process of lying down again. He still has a gorgeous coat and good muscle tone. Yesterday was a windy day and once again I brushed out mountains of undercoat, it's amazing how much hair is on a dog. So now Nanuk looks a bit slimmer than he did in the winter even though his weight is still the same 114 lbs.
2 weeks ago we started him on thyroid hormone replacement therapy as his thyroid level was low. It has made quite a difference in his level of alertness. The changes I had seen were very subtle and I had written them off to old age since we were already giving him pain meds, so I knew it wasn't pain. We had done labwork back in October and I had been told everything was okay, but I hadn't seen the results myself, so wasn't aware that his thyroid level was very low normal. We went for a walk today and compared to how he was about 4 weeks ago when it was actually cooler, he was a lot more spiffy and investigating and trotting a lot more than last time when he just ambled along much slower. I am very pleased with this improvement. I really want him to have a quality of life more than anything else. And having the energy to enjoy life is part of that. Me and the vet suspect that it is not his thyroid that is causing the low level but something else, however we don't know that for sure, so I will just keep a close eye on him and we will repeat labwork in a few months and see if anything else comes up out of normal, but in October everything else was fine.
He is such a beautiful boy. For a while I was feeding him foods with grain again and had a really hard time with him having eye stains. As this pictures shows, he does not have a problem with this anymore since I have been feeding him just the grainfree foods and raw foods like turkey necks and chicken parts. I am making my own yoghurt and kefir and so he gets that too as well as raw eggs. This seems to be working for him. Since he started on the thyroid meds he has also taken to climbing into bed with me again. Really interesting, before he would just curl up on his bed, now when I go to bed he comes over and lets me know he wants to come up, so for an hour or so he will sleep up on the bed, then he usually goes outside to watch for coyotes.
Nanuk celebrated his 10th birthday yesterday. He is still very active and he is still my very valued property guardian, nothing escapes him, wether it's a neighbor going for a ride or a raven flying too low or a loose dog on the horizon.
I am happy to say that up until now he has been pretty healthy with only some minor issues. He has had some issues with what I believe his knees for many years but it had not really slowed him down, the only time it is noticable is when he wants to lie down, it takes him a while to get into the right position to lower himself, but he has no problems getting up. Last fall we started him on an NSAID medication to help with pain and inflammation and it has made a difference in his overall activity level, I also give him at least 6 fishoil capsules a day and we have recently started giving him Adequan shots, I hope to maintain his mobility with this regimen together with keeping him lean and plenty of exercise.
here he is a bit miffed because I made him get up from the porch and he wants to lie down again, he wouldn't stand for me nicely, so here is a pic of him in the process of lying down again. He still has a gorgeous coat and good muscle tone. Yesterday was a windy day and once again I brushed out mountains of undercoat, it's amazing how much hair is on a dog. So now Nanuk looks a bit slimmer than he did in the winter even though his weight is still the same 114 lbs.2 weeks ago we started him on thyroid hormone replacement therapy as his thyroid level was low. It has made quite a difference in his level of alertness. The changes I had seen were very subtle and I had written them off to old age since we were already giving him pain meds, so I knew it wasn't pain. We had done labwork back in October and I had been told everything was okay, but I hadn't seen the results myself, so wasn't aware that his thyroid level was very low normal. We went for a walk today and compared to how he was about 4 weeks ago when it was actually cooler, he was a lot more spiffy and investigating and trotting a lot more than last time when he just ambled along much slower. I am very pleased with this improvement. I really want him to have a quality of life more than anything else. And having the energy to enjoy life is part of that. Me and the vet suspect that it is not his thyroid that is causing the low level but something else, however we don't know that for sure, so I will just keep a close eye on him and we will repeat labwork in a few months and see if anything else comes up out of normal, but in October everything else was fine.
He is such a beautiful boy. For a while I was feeding him foods with grain again and had a really hard time with him having eye stains. As this pictures shows, he does not have a problem with this anymore since I have been feeding him just the grainfree foods and raw foods like turkey necks and chicken parts. I am making my own yoghurt and kefir and so he gets that too as well as raw eggs. This seems to be working for him. Since he started on the thyroid meds he has also taken to climbing into bed with me again. Really interesting, before he would just curl up on his bed, now when I go to bed he comes over and lets me know he wants to come up, so for an hour or so he will sleep up on the bed, then he usually goes outside to watch for coyotes. Here is hoping that in 4 or 5 months when the weather cools down we can go for a few more hikes in the mountains together.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Coyote and snow pictures # 2,
Another shot of our beautiful Mt Charleston
Our road, this is what I look at every day when I come home from work
low clouds in the foothills
Cici out for a walk
A pretty rock I found. Now here is the story behind it. Where I often walk my dogs there are usually no cars, but on that day there was a car coming up on one end, so I veered off and went a slightly different route, then they came my way again, so I was a bit p.......d off that I couldn't have a walk without these people driving around disturbing my walk, so as I was walking across the desert to avoid the car, I came across this rock. It calmed my anger about the people disturbing our walk, I wouldn't have found this rock if I didn't have to take a hike through this part of the desert because of those people.
On another walk with Nanuk and Ayla I spotted this coyote. It was actually pretty close, maybe 80 feet from us when I first noticed it. The only reason the dogs didn't notice was that I actually stopped walking before I even noticed the coyote and the dogs looked at me to figure out why I stopped, in that moment the coyote popped out of the bushes and headed away from us, I tried to keep the dogs focused on me because I wanted to take a picture of the coyote and didn't want the dogs to go crazy, but by the time I got the camera ready to shot it had already moved way out and at that point the dogs saw it too.
Here is another shot of wild canine. A couple months ago I was driving and saw some coyotes running across the street, I drove to where I saw them to get a closer look when I noticed it was two coyotes chasing a rabbit. As I came closer the rabbit ran across the street right in front of me. Another car came from the other direction, the coyotes stopped to let the car go by (pretty smart), then ran across the road to continue their chase, of course the rabbit was nowhere to be seen. The coyotes stopped and looked my way. That look said it all "those darn cars cost us our breakfast".
Ayla and Nanuk observing the coyote
they were standing there for about 5 minutes watching, I couldn't see the coyote anymore, I have no idea if they still saw it or where just keeping an eye on where they last saw it
Ayla
Ayla, almost 5 1/2 years old, time goes by too fast
Nanuk, drooling
chicken in the snow
these were some more pics in the snow, taken the same day as the other snow pictures right after New Year. Prince and Sammie playing
Sam wrinkles her nose, the lip curls slightly
more nose wrinkling and lip curling from Sammie as Prince is pushing her buttons
now her hackles are up, she is ready to pretend she is mad
she gives him the look
and there is sweet little Sammie looking like she is mad
Prince loves to run
Sam running
there they go on a wild chase
interestingly, Sammie doesn't even eat half as much as Prince does and has a tendency to put on weight, while Prince is always really skinny, he always gets to eat as much as he wants, on Sam I have to restrict it.
happy Princey, I love to see him so happy running around
Sammie girl,
close up of the ticking on her muzzle
Prince
Prince is ready to play
looking regal in the snow
Princey boy
Another shot of our beautiful Mt Charleston
Our road, this is what I look at every day when I come home from work
low clouds in the foothills
Cici out for a walk
A pretty rock I found. Now here is the story behind it. Where I often walk my dogs there are usually no cars, but on that day there was a car coming up on one end, so I veered off and went a slightly different route, then they came my way again, so I was a bit p.......d off that I couldn't have a walk without these people driving around disturbing my walk, so as I was walking across the desert to avoid the car, I came across this rock. It calmed my anger about the people disturbing our walk, I wouldn't have found this rock if I didn't have to take a hike through this part of the desert because of those people.
On another walk with Nanuk and Ayla I spotted this coyote. It was actually pretty close, maybe 80 feet from us when I first noticed it. The only reason the dogs didn't notice was that I actually stopped walking before I even noticed the coyote and the dogs looked at me to figure out why I stopped, in that moment the coyote popped out of the bushes and headed away from us, I tried to keep the dogs focused on me because I wanted to take a picture of the coyote and didn't want the dogs to go crazy, but by the time I got the camera ready to shot it had already moved way out and at that point the dogs saw it too.
Here is another shot of wild canine. A couple months ago I was driving and saw some coyotes running across the street, I drove to where I saw them to get a closer look when I noticed it was two coyotes chasing a rabbit. As I came closer the rabbit ran across the street right in front of me. Another car came from the other direction, the coyotes stopped to let the car go by (pretty smart), then ran across the road to continue their chase, of course the rabbit was nowhere to be seen. The coyotes stopped and looked my way. That look said it all "those darn cars cost us our breakfast".
Ayla and Nanuk observing the coyote
they were standing there for about 5 minutes watching, I couldn't see the coyote anymore, I have no idea if they still saw it or where just keeping an eye on where they last saw it
Ayla
Ayla, almost 5 1/2 years old, time goes by too fast
Nanuk, drooling
chicken in the snow
these were some more pics in the snow, taken the same day as the other snow pictures right after New Year. Prince and Sammie playing
Sam wrinkles her nose, the lip curls slightly
more nose wrinkling and lip curling from Sammie as Prince is pushing her buttons
now her hackles are up, she is ready to pretend she is mad
she gives him the look
and there is sweet little Sammie looking like she is mad
Prince loves to run
Sam running
there they go on a wild chase
interestingly, Sammie doesn't even eat half as much as Prince does and has a tendency to put on weight, while Prince is always really skinny, he always gets to eat as much as he wants, on Sam I have to restrict it.
happy Princey, I love to see him so happy running around
Sammie girl,
close up of the ticking on her muzzle
Prince
Prince is ready to play
looking regal in the snow
Princey boy