Snow, Over Nighter's and Doggy Fun!

I had been planning for weeks to go down to my dad's for a weekend visit, but the weather almost put a damper on those plans! Another round of snow had moved in and I was starting to wonder if I was going to make it there. Fortunately, it only snowed a couple inches and it was very localized to my area, so my plans got to stay the same. I was going to take my crazy Aussie, Bailey, with me. Bailey and my dad's dog, Rosie, get along really well, so I thought it would be fun for them to get to have a "play date" and not just a day long play date, but an over night play date! Bailey has never stayed over night anywhere before, so I was wondering how he would do being away from home for so long.

I arrived at my dad's around lunch time. My sister had already been there for a day, and she was going to be heading home soon, so we all went out to lunch. Then she had to hit the road. My dad and I went back to his house to get the dogs and take them to an off leash dog park right down the road from his house. Bailey has never been to a dog park before, and my dad said there usually aren't any dogs there. But when we pulled up, sure enough a couple guys had just pulled in and let their dog out. I wasn't worried about Bailey. He gets along great with all dogs. He is so submissive that he will usually lay down when another dog approaches him. We get the dogs inside the gate and we realize the other dog is an Aussie too! My dad's dog is half Aussie and half we don't know what, and Bailey is Aussie, so we knew they would have some fun.

Max, Bailey and Rosie

The other Aussie's name was Max and he looked like an older Aussie. All 3 dogs checked each other out, then it was off to the races! They ran and played so hard. They all got along so good.

Max and Bailey

The only thing about the dog park was that the park people had taken down some of the fencing because they are putting in a walking path. So we had to really watch the dogs to make sure they didn't decide to make an escape. I worry about Bailey because he is the type to wander off, and if he saw an opening, he might make a run for it. But even when he noticed the openings, he didn't try to leave. He listened to me really well and came running to me when I called him.

Bailey looking at the river

On one whole side of the dog park, it is all open to the river. Bailey kept trying to go down there. He probably felt like he was back at home with the river. He tried going down to the river, but I called him and he came right back to me.

Once we got back to my dad's, Bailey was a little confused. He would go to the door, thinking maybe it was time to head home? When it was bed time, he wanted in my room, but my dad's cat was in there, and he was scared of the cat. My dad's cat is a 22 pound monster, but extremely friendly and lovable. He would rub all over Bailey, and I think Bailey thought he was going to turn around and smack him in the face. So once the cat left the room, Bailey came into the room and slept on the bed with me, all night! He does not sleep on my bed at home, but he probably would if my cats weren't there. He does sleep on the bed in the guest room though. The times I have been sick and have slept in our guest room, Bailey would jump up there for a minute then get back down. But at my dad's I think he was a little worried I might just disappear in the middle of the night and leave him, and I am sure he didn't want that to happen so he stayed close all night.

The next morning we took the dogs back to the dog park and let them run around again. This time it was just the 2 dogs, but they still had fun.

I made it home early afternoon and took a nap. I was tired and had started to get a headache on the drive home. After my OH got home from work, he was cooking dinner when Sadie, who was in the garage, started barking like crazy. When she does this we always look out back to the garbage cans. The neighbor dogs have been trying to make it a habit to dump our garbage cans over and spread garbage everywhere. Sadie always alerts us to this. But there weren't any knocked over garbage cans. Then someone knocked on the front door. My OH answered it and it was a woman from our neighborhood. She asked if we had a big, chestnut horse. There was one loose walking down the road and she had stopped and rolled her window down and the horse put it's head in her window. I jumped up and said we didn't have a horse matching that description, but we would drive down to see if we could find it. It was dark and snowy, so that is a bad combination for a loose horse and a car driving down the road. We grabbed a halter and lead rope, jumped into the car and went down the road. Not too far from our house there were a bunch of cars just sitting in the middle of the road. We thought "Oh no, that doesn't look good", we were hoping that the horse didn't get hit. We jumped out and a guy walks back to our car and said that there was a loose horse. We said we knew, someone stopped by our house thinking it might be ours, and it wasn't, so we thought we'd come get it out of the road. Another woman with horses had already caught it and was leading it down the road. She told us that she had an extra paddock with shelter that she could put it in until she found out who it belongs too. And the horse? Not a chestnut. It was bay! The woman that stopped at our house had stopped at that woman's house that was leading the horse too. So apparently she was aware of who had horses in the neighborhood. That is twice this year there have been loose horses in the neighborhood. Thankfully it was caught and the horse and people driving, are safe. Now hopefully they can find the owner!

Another snow storm is moving in.......on Tuesday. It sounds like we could get 4" or more. But should turn to rain on Wednesday. Which means a lot more wet......and mud. Lovely!!