A nice winter hike

Today I stole Carmen and asked John to come for a hike with us. I'll admit, I had an ulterior motive - Carmen and Ike together on a hike alone at this point can be pretty difficult. So I was hoping John would want to go. : ) That way we could bring both dogs and I could start conditioning Ms. Carmen.

Carmen is ideal prep for my puppy-to-be. She has minimal manners and has no idea that there is any reason she should be paying attention to a human on a walk. Hee, so real training in store! There is certainly a good dog waiting to get out in there.

We spent about 2 hours at Borderland and Carmen got progressively more attentive to me during the hike. Compared to Ike she is in AWFUL shape, so I will have to work on them both. At one point we were in a very large field and no one was near, John went about 25 yards away and called them to him, then sent them back to me. The last time they went back to John Ike took off to the right with Carmen tearing after him. She couldn't catch him. That has NEVER happened before - she is so much faster than him, but he's in better shape! Hooray!

Currently they are both sound asleep on the couch. Nothing like an exhausted dog. And I think Carmen might be even a better candidate than Ike for tracking - her nose rarely left the ground! Exciting! So even though DH has laid down the law and said no puppy until the end of 2008, I have a dog to work with and prepare me for my puppy. And as an added bonus Carmen reminds me of how far Ike has come and what a good boy he is.