Hiking!

Yesterday Tommy went geocaching at the Pueblo Reservoir with Jill, Mark and Kaitlin Hoke. Tommy had so much fun chasing butterflies and sniffing grass. At lunch time, Tommy got to play in the water, chasing the waves and trying in vain to bite them. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't get a hold of those waves!
After lunch it was time to find a few more caches but, boy, was Tommy tired. Tommy spent the afternoon hikes in the comfort of his backpack lounging while Mark carried him over the hills and down the dry creek beds. While Mark, Jill and Kaitlin were searching for one cache, Tommy was resting under a Juniper bush, taking advantage of the shade, when suddenly, his backpack lost its balance! Tommy toppled over inside of his pack and the pack began to roll down the hill toward the ravine with Tommy inside!
Quick as lightning, Kaitlin raced toward Tommy and grabbed his backpack, saving Tommy from an uncertain future at the bottom of a cliff! Kaitlin is now and forever our hero!
The rest of the trip was, thankfully, uneventful and after the hikes, Tommy got to have ice cream from Sonic. We are very grateful and happy that Tommy was none the worse for wear after his tumble.

Tommy settles in for a long winter's night

Tommy has discovered that while having pee out in the freezing cold is not a whole lot of fun, sitting by the fire in his warm sweater and comfy bed is the ultimate relaxation.

Tommy decorates for Christmas

Tommy put up the Christmas tree and decorated the house today. He had a lot of fun rolling in front of the fire and playing with the tree skirt and sitting in Mark's lap while Mark put the hooks into the christmas ornaments. It was all fun and games until Tommy discovered that a nutcracker soldier had somehow infiltrated the house and set up camp on the DVD shelf. He would have NONE of that. Tommy was happily cleaning out Jill's bowl of cream of mushroom soup when low and behold, Tommy looked up to see the soldier and let out a stream of barks and howls. As soon as Jill and Mark realized what Tommy was barking at so ferociously, did they remove the offending intruder from Tommy's sight? No. Instead they brought the nutcracker soldier down onto the floor and pretended to make him bark back by moving his nut cracking mouth up and down. Tommy went into hysterics. Barking and howling and running in circles, and jumping backward and growling. Tommy hates Mr. Nutcracker. To make life even worse for Tommy, Jill put a peanutbutter treat inside the nutcracker's mouth to try to gt Tommy to come close to the soldier so the puppy could see that he wooden toy wasn't scary at all. It took Tommy 10 minutes to work up the courage to grab the treat and run away with it. Eventually, Tommy was able to approach the nutcracker, sniff him and knock him over. Heh, the nutcracker soldier isn't so scary afterall, is it?

Tommy goes shopping in Aspen

Tommy spent the weekend at Avalanche Ranch in celebration of Mark and Jill's first wedding anniversary. It rained. But we still had fun :) We stayed in an adorable little cabin with a sleeping loft and a tiny kitchen. We played ping pong while it rained, watched part of O, Brother Where Art Thou, and played a game of Trivial Pursuit. Tommy caught the ping pong ball for us whenever we dropped it. Tommy really enjoyed playing with Ruby, a 6 month old yellow lab. Ruby was nice enough to let Tommy win every now and then :) Tommy also enjoyed the Apple Festival where he watched Mark and Jill eats lots of food and listen to bluegrass.


On Sunday, Tommy went Oddball Colorado hunting again. This time he went in search of oddities in Glenwood Springs and Aspen. He found the Hotel Colorado where the teddy bear was invented, the world's largest hot springs pool, Doc Holliday's grave stone and Ted Bundy's first and second Colorado prison escapes.


Then, Tommy went shopping in Aspen. He found a very fun soft frisbee that squeaks and a $60.00 sweater. Yes, Tommy bought a $60.00 sweater. But he looks very distinguished in his sweater...much like Sherlock Holmes. Now we just need to find Tommy a Holmes hat and a pipe and he'll be solving mysteries up and down the Front Range.





The sweater came in very handy as we decided to take Independence Pass home. It was 32 degrees and snowing at the top of the pass. While we were not dressed for such weather, Tommy was.

Tommy graduates from puppy obedience school

Tommy graduated from obedience training last night! He had a final exam that consisted of walking on a leash and then obeying several commands on demand with lots of distractions. Tommy now knows how to Sit, Lay Down, Sit and Stay, Lay Down and Stay, Drop It, Leave It, Front (coming to us when we call) and he walks on a leash without pulling. He's not perfect and sometimes he can be stubborn but he's learning. :)

Here are some pictures from the graduation!


Tommy tests the sit command














Tommy's graduation swag














Tommy practices walking on a leash














Tommy is starving after graduation!

Tommy searches for the brotherhood of the white temple

Tommy was supposed to visit a cornfield maze and help us navigate through it with his amazing hound sniffing capabilities. However, the cornfield maze didn't allow pets. How annoying is that? What kind of OUTDOOR cornfield maze wouldn't allow dogs too? Very discriminatory if you ask me. Then we decided to try the Castle Rock Art Festival in the middle of downtown Castle Rock. They also didn't allow dogs! No dogs?!? No dogs in the middle of a downtown STREET festival? Who are the people who make up these stupid rules? They are obviously cruel, hateful people with cold, bitter hearts.


So, after driving to Denver AND Castle Rock all for nothing we decided to head to Sedalia to hunt for the Brotherhood of the White Temple, which is in the Oddball Colorado book. This was a rather uncomfortable trip. The paved road ended abruptly. Then we turned off the nice wide dirt road onto some mountain roads that were washed out and very, very steep and narrow and that took us to someone's home...someone who could very well step out onto the porch with a shotgun when they saw us turning around. We only bottomed out once on these roads. When we finally got to a sign that read, Brotherhood of the White Temple College and Church, we snapped a picture and got the heck out of Dodge. Driving around a secluded mountain looking for the church of a cult isn't exactly like navigating a cornfield maze at a city botanical garden, you know?


Tommy is back home safe and sound and none the worse for wear although I'm sure he would tell you that driving around in a car all day is not very much fun. He would have much rather helped mommy and daddy through a cornfield maze. He's taking a siesta. Napping all day in the car is exhausting.

Tommy rings the bell!

In house breaking Tommy we have learned thatas he is so small we don't always realize that he has gone to stand by the door to go outside. A few times Tommy has waited by the door and then given up and just gone right there. And he is a rather quiet dog so we needed a way to help him make some noise when he needs to go pee. We bought a call bell from Office Depot, the ones that sit on hotel desks and have a sign beside them that reads, "Ring bell for service." We have been making Tommy hit the bell every time he goes outside. Mark said that this morning, he was trying to train Tommy to hit the bell by holding a treat right at the bell popper so that when Tommy tries to get to the treat he rings the bell with his nose :)

I was sitting by the door reading emails and out of nowhere I heard the call bell ring! Tommy is so quiet that I didn't realize he had come to stand beside me wanting to go out. But he rang the bell to get my attention! He's such a smart little puppy :)