Leader of the Pack

The Adventure Pack

A new pack member joined us on today's hike: Sage!  Sage is a Border Collie/German Shepherd mix.  She met Coco first and the two of them sniffed each other politely then hopped into the car together.  Sage was a little more timid when we picked up Rucksack and she stayed sitting at the back of the pack mobile while Rucksack happily greeted Coco and sniffed his new packmate.  On the trails, Coco and Rucksack found an interesting spot to sniff and I encouraged Sage to check it out, too; but she was still unsure and waited until Coco and Rucksack moved on before sniffing the spot herself.  This happened a number of times along the way, and as the hike went on she started to get more comfortable and sniffed right alongside her packmates.  When we stopped for water breaks, Coco and Rucksack lapped up the water from the Camelbak spout without hesitation, but it was clearly a foreign concept to Sage.  She sniffed at the water stream and opened her mouth a bit like she was going to go for it, but then she kept her face away.  I tried squirting it directly into her mouth and then she drank a little bit but soon backed away again.  It will take some getting used to.  Otherwise, she did great!

The Play Pack

Maverick chased around a ball a bit after Oscar proved disinterested in retrieving it after running it down a few times.  Benny went after it when I bounced it right in front of him or just a few feet away, and even fetched it back once, but otherwise just left it on the ground directly in front of him after catching it.  Later on, Oscar and I had a good game of fetch when he decided to actually bring the ball back to me.  Oso wandered around the park to say hello to all the dogs he could see, including a Golden Retriever and a Great Dane who were running around together.  He followed along behind them at a moderate pace and nosed in occasionally while the other two wrestled around.