Leader of the Pack

The Adventure Pack

At the beginning of today's hike, Wesley growled as we passed by another dog again; but he dropped down into a play-bow as he did it so I think it was just an excited attempt to catch the attention of a potential playmate.  Coco and Rucksack had their usual stick-stealing struggle throughout the hike.  Toward the latter part of the hike, Rucksack found a long (maybe 4') branch to carry.   I knelt down to take a picture of the pack while Coco and Rucksack were negotiating stick-carrying priveleges over the huge branch Rucksack had found.  Wesley sat down for the picture with Rucksack and Coco in the background.  Right after I snapped the shot, Wesley got up, walked right up to me, sat back down, and leaned forward right into me, almost lying in my lap.  It was very sweet, and I gave him a lot of love back (also some water).  The above-mentioned picture is posted in September's Pack Photo album.

The Play Pack

Pico loves to run!  The whole time at the park, she hangs around the fringe of where others are and then picks out one dog, approaches it, and then takes off in a flash.  Unfortunately, she doesn't wait long enough to really catch the attention of the other dogs a lot of the time, so they just end up ignoring her as she bounds away full-speed with a huge grin.  When she realizes a few seconds later that no one is behind her, she comes back to the fringe and looks around for another potential chaser.  When I walk around the perimeter with her and Coco, however, Coco is happy to give her chase.  The two of them ran and ran together.  Pico is really fast and Coco can't keep up even though Coco has longer legs, so Pico stops and turns around every so often to give Coco a chance to catch up.  When Coco gets close, Pico darts back toward her and then dodges to the side as Coco goes flying by.  Coco also had a great time wrestling around with a German Shorthaired Pointer named Kora who she's had fun with in the past.  They love jumping up face-to-face at one another with their paws out and then pushing at one another's chests while they're up on their hind legs and seeing who loses their balance first.