Leader of the Pack

The Adventure Pack

It has occurred to me that Rucksack hasn't been carrying sticks (let alone entire limbs) on the trails lately.  That may largely be due to the fact that I've been keeping him on leash so he doesn't strain himself while his leg has been recovering.  There aren't as many sticks right along the trail as there are off in the brush, although today he passed on a perfectly good branch that was strewn right across the path.  Benny enjoys tossing sticks around in play, but he's never been a stick carrier.  Oliver is too small to carry anything but a twig, and doesn't bother.  I think the branch we passed today probably weighed about 3 times as much as him.

The Play Pack

We had a new member in the Play Pack today: Maebe!  Maebe is a very wiggily and friendly black Lab puppy of about 8 months.  She received lukewarm greetings from her packmates at first - each of them grumbled at her when she tried to sniff and lick at their faces.  After sitting in the back of the packmobile with her, Coco, Benny, and Oscar for about 10 minutes to make sure everyone was welcoming to our new packmate, Maebe and Coco were lying facing each other and licking one another's paws.  When we entered the park, the two of them took off in a race.  Coco and Maebe took turns fetching a tennis ball for a little bit afterwards.  The wind picked up while we were at the park and the change in the weather brought out a burst of playful energy from Benny, who started bounding around, bowing, and rubbing his face against anyone nearby.  Oscar joined a couple runs with other dogs, as usual, but was a bit more mellow on the whole today.