Amber's Adventures

When we returned day before yesterday from our walk in the rain, I dried Amber with a towel. She was lying on her side and I was carefully drying her legs, one by one, as we don’t entirely trust her. She seemed content until I started drying the last leg. She immediately reacted by jumping up, wailing and frantically putting her teeth all over my arms like she was biting but not doing so. We ended up with her standing on her back legs looking eye-to-eye with me, my left hand holding her by her collar and she showing teeth and the most gums I’ve every seen. She was one unhappy camper. As we looked at each other, her lips gradually closed and I released her collar. Scary!

Reflecting on what had just occurred, I thought that she had been abused and I had triggered an ‘anchor’ which brought back those memories. We had virtually decided to return her because we don’t need an unstable dog. She had reacted similarly when I tugged on her shoulder to get her out of the car a month or so ago. Later on in the day, when she was lying down, I noticed her dewclaws and then it occurred to me that most likely a dewclaw caught in the towel when I was drying her and she was reacting to the pain, however slight. We’re giving her the benefit of doubt, but it’s yet another instance of her being a ‘frighty’ dog.

We avoid, when we can, repeating walks with Amber in order to give both her and us new experiences. Today we explored a very narrow, unmarked trail off the horse trail in our neighborhood. We wandered through the trees and brush and ultimately came upon what was questionably a public street. Eventually, we came to a street that we recognized as being in a community from which we moved eighteen years ago.

We followed that street to an open space leading to a briskly flowing creek. The area was vaguely familiar as we last visited it about twenty-five years ago. Amber eagerly found a crossing spot and rushed across, then waited for me. We decided that we wouldn’t continue in that direction because of the terrain and and uncertainty of public/private property. Our current house was very close to where we were but it would have been a rugged hike getting there.

We explored downstream along the creek and came to a “Private Property” sign so retreated to the street and went back home the way we came.

I looked on Poway’s website for both open space and a trail map of the trails in our area but didn’t see any but the one known to us. I then called the city staff to get information and the staff were most helpful. The parks maintenance supervisor was intimately knowledgeable about the area we hiked and we found out that much of what we thought was open space was undeveloped, unposted, private property. The narrow trail that we took initially was a public easement by the tract developers to Poway to allow the Poway High School students a way to continue to walk to school. Apparently, there are numerous such unmarked trails in the area, some maintained by the city, some not.

Amber seemed very happy with the much longer than usual walk and I’m sure she’s excitedly looking forward to the next walk.

Please see the entry in CSIS 137 site blog regarding the change of site colors today. This blog’s colors were not changed.

This afternoon, we took Amber to the creek and open space near our home. After our recent rains, there were uncountable gopher holes and mounds in the soft, decomposed granite soil. She found one that attracted her interest and she immediately began digging looking for the gopher. She used her mouth removing the sod and flinging it to the left and right while at the same time frantically digging with her feet. She dug a trench about four feet long, backfilling as she went, but she was definitely not digging as fast as was the gopher. She was certainly being her wild self. Note the few “dingo” white hairs on her tail tip. We broke her away from her fun and took her to the creek to wash the dirt from her then-black tounge and mouth.

A blog about Amber should have her picture, so here it is.

WordPress 2.3.3 installation was easy! At this point, I haven’t decided whether to maintain this blog or simply use it to demonstrate a blog on my CSIS 137 final project. I will need to add at least two other site features that are not found in our textbook, Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML (Freeman & Freeman).