Tucker’s First Road Trip: Part Five

 In the nation’s banner free
There’s one star that has for me
A radiance pure and splendor like the sun;
Mine it is, Wyoming’s star…

~ Wyoming, C.E. Winter

Today was the “take a hike” day that my mom and dad had been telling me about. Since Dad didn’t go fishing this morning, he came, too! But because the forecast was for more thunderstorms, we decided to stick close by and just walk the trails within the Old Baldy Club perimeter instead of driving up to the big mountains.

So off we went with a few supplies (including my brand new collapsible water bowl). After hiking for awhile, my mom found a shady spot and poured me a drink of water. Well, I was VERY suspicious of it, and no matter how hard she tried to convince me to drink some, I wasn’t going to have anything to do with it. Maybe she can flatten it and toss it for me to catch like a frisbee? Then she wouldn’t have wasted her money.

After awhile I started walking more and more slowly, and we were still pretty far away from the lodge, so my mom and dad decided to take a short cut and surreptitiously walk across the golf course. We made it! No golf balls rained on our heads.

The very first thing I did when we got back to our room was to take a LONG drink of water out of MY bowl.

After a long nap, it was finally time for the much ballyhooed  PUPPY CAMP!  Every Wednesday and Friday afternoon at the OBC, all dogs (and their owners) are invited to meet in the meadow to play together. Both my mom and dad came with me to my first Puppy Camp, which made me feel a little more confident.

There must have been at least 20 dogs there of all shapes and sizes: Labs, Bassetts, Jack Russells, King Charles Cavaliers, a Border Collie, Greyhound, Springer Spaniel and more. I was the only Sheltie, but heard there was another one that wasn’t able to come on this particular day.

All the dogs were milling around, running, barking, playing, sniffing. And all the people were milling around, too, taking pictures, handing out treats, drinking stuff and laughing a lot. My new friend Jeanine (Fenwick and Jules’ mom) ran far away across the meadow while our people held on to us. When she shouted “GO!”, they let us run, because we all knew she had treats for us!

I mentioned there was a Greyhound in the pack. His name is DeBeers, and he is a beautiful fawn colored dog that loves to run. Well! When DeBeers took off running, he looked like a Ferrari passing a bunch of Prius cars. He may have had a delayed start, but goodness, when his instincts kicked in, he beat everydog to the finish line!

There was also a little white dog named Bentley who LOVED my friend Bella (from Dallas) that I met yesterday. There was also a Border Collie named Mesa who kept trying to herd poor Bella (she is a curly haired dog that I guess Mesa mistook for a sheep). Between Bentley’s attempts to be amorous, and Mesa’s attempts to corral her, poor Bella spent most of her time trying to escape these two. I watched Bentley carefully and learned some new things. I didn’t know dogs did stuff like that!

 (clockwise from left: Bella, Bentley, Mesa and Tucker)

So I tried to show my new devotion to my new girlfriend (yes, Mesa), and I can’t wait to see her again on Friday! My mom was like, “TUCKER!”

Later that evening, we went for a walk up to our lot to enjoy the sunset. Mom and Dad were focused on the sky, but I spied a momma deer and two fawns. Oh! I wanted to chase them so badly, but my mom wouldn’t let me. On the way back to the lodge, we saw two “big boy” deer (with spike antlers) just a-chewing away on the shrubs at somebody’s house. Mom tried to take their picture, but it was too dark, so it didn’t come out.

What a fun day this was! Wyoming is going to be a great place to live in the summer…