Thursday, October 22, 2020

Long Overdue

Liam's introduction to the blog world is long overdue. The saying "every cloud has a silver lining" certainly fits this blog post.  During a worldwide pandemic when all the travel I had planned for this first full year of retirement was cancelled, I had to find that "silver lining" so I got a puppy.  In August, I added Divine's Locharran Liam to the pack. I've been looking for a bi black puppy for over a year now and if it hadn't been for the pandemic I wouldn't have gotten Liam as right now I'd be on a Mediterranean cruise; I wouldn't have gotten a puppy just to leave them with someone else for nearly a month.

Liam - Six weeks

Liam came home at nine weeks old; that first day was very hard, every time he napped I was in tears because he wasn't Beckett.  He'll be five months old on 4 Nov.  He's fit in quite well.  At first Teddy was a little rough but he was never aggressive, now Teddy is very patient with a little brat who's always pulling his hair and nipping him. Keltic doesn't like Liam much and is usually the fun police but lately Keltic has been trying to get Liam to tug on a toy with him. 

Liam - 10 weeks

Liam is going to be a big Sheltie. He's not quite five months and he's already as tall or taller than Keltic who is 15 1/2 inches. 

Liam - 12 weeks

Liam - 14 weeks

He's been a good puppy. We've had very few accidents and usually because I've ignored him. He always whined when he needed to go out, unlike other young puppies who just stopped and peed right where they were.  At night, I first had him in a kennel on my bed but then he was asking to get out two or three times a night so I decided to try him out on the bed with me, once I did that he would sleep through the night. Well mostly, he would usually have to go out between 3 and 4 am, then I would put him in the kennel for the rest of the night.  He's been sleeping through the night for over a month now, getting up between 6:30  and 7:30 am.  He's also sleeping on the dog beds rather than with me in bed. He's the first puppy I've had that took himself off to bed upstairs.

Liam - 4 months

Even during a pandemic I've tried to expose him to many things. He's been to a garden centre,  went shopping with me to Canadian Tire, been camping and hiking and has visited with family and friends.  He's been sharing Teddy's agility classes, doing tugging games and impulse control games soon we'll be able to do some basic agility training.  He's not been phased by anything too much; although this week, a bunny that came out from under the cedar hedge while he was taking care of business, which did startle him a bit. The next bunny he saw though, he stood his ground and then started to chase it; that bunny escaped under the fence.

Liam out shopping

Met Beckett's litter sister, Hannah while camping

At home

Hiking

Playing with Teddy

Meeting Border Collie friends

I still miss Beckett but now Liam has found his own place in my heart.  I'm sure we'll have many wonderful adventures together. Hopefully, it won't be another four months before there's another post about Liam, or Teddy, or Keltic for that matter.

Counter Surfer?

I can almost reach.

Sunday, October 18, 2020

Mini Walktober Walks

 Well, it's Walktober, one thing we can do in a pandemic is go for a nice walk. I planned three walks, none of which turned out as planned but it was still nice to get out.

Facebook reminded me of past walks by the Ottawa river ahead of our Thanksgiving weekend so I decided to do that again. Since adding Liam to the pack, I can no longer take all three dogs to the federal government owned lands administered by the National Capital Commission. NCC regulations only allow each person to walk a maximum of two dogs so I decided to go to a boat launch that has a trail by the river.  There's a an old boat on the shoreline, I'm sure it's located on private property. I thought it would be a good place for some pictures; but since this really isn't a public trail, I found it had been overgrown and I decided I wasn't going to try and wrangle three dogs through the brush to get there so we turned back. Even had we made it to the boat, we would have had to turn around as the trail just follows the river's edge.

On the Ottawa river.

The boys leading the way.

The trail

Looking down to the boat launch.

Our next walk was on Thanksgiving Monday, we went to do the Wilsondale trails. They are trails maintained by the city of Ottawa and are in behind the Cumberland Heritage Village Museum. We started out to do some of those trails but even though it was a bright sunny day, the trail was wet and muddy.  I don't think we had even gone halfway and it was just too muddy so again I headed back.  We did walk the museum property instead. The museum doesn't permit dogs when it's open but once it's closed they don't seem to mind. I've walked the dogs there a number of times even in the winter as the roads are kept plowed. 

On the Wilsondale trail

Heritage Village Museum

Barn in the Heritage Village

Tractor and fall colours

Another barn

Old gas station

My last Walktober walk was just yesterday. I had thought to go downtown Ottawa to take a picture of the statue of the Famous Five statue as today is Persons Day in Canada. I took just Keltic and Liam with me. We walked all around the Parliament buildings, down to the canal, over to the War Memorial and down the Sparks street mall but we didn't see the statues. Turns out because the restoration work has started on the Parliament buildings that many of the statues have been moved. The restoration work will take the next ten years.  The Famous Five statue has been moved to the front of the building being used as the temporary Senate, it will be a government conference centre once all the renovations are done. 

Statue to the War of 1812

View of the Ottawa River and Gatineau from behind Parliament

Eternal Flame and the Peace Tower

Keltic and Liam on the Rideau Canal

Rideau Canal Locks

Keltic at the War Memorial

Liam - downtown Ottawa

So while none of walks turned out as planned, they got us out of the house to enjoy some beautiful fall days.  Hopefully, there will be more nice days ahead as I have leaves to rake.