Hiking in Hocking Hills and the Training Challenge is ON!

We went to one of my most favorite places today - the Cedar Falls trail at Hocking Hills!

This time of year, there isn't much water coming over the falls, but it's still pretty:

There were two big snapping turtles - this is the smaller one:

We were all alone for a little bit and I got to be off-leash:

Me and mom:

Again:

Doing some hiking - I am on a flexi-leash - there are cliffs and stuff so it's too dangerous for off-leash and mom controls the flexi carefully:

Tiger swallowtails were everywhere:

Me and dad:

Taking a break:

Me and mom again:

There were also lots of red-spotted purples:

The trail is so beautiful:

It follows a creek most of the time:

We even got a little video - listen to the sound of the cicadas in the background!

Enough of that! Ok, I declare that the training challenge is ON for anyone and everyone who wants to participate! Starting this week and running for as long as you all want to - we are thinking until the weather gets too bad for regular outdoor trips for us. But you don't have to be outside to do the challenge. This is how we view the challenge - we are going to do at least one thing each week that takes us out of our comfort zone. For us, it's very comfortable to practice agility at home and do tricks, walk around our own neighborhood, go to my favorite parks, and go to classes. So we want to motivate ourselves to work on other things - like take some agility equipment to safe locations other than our backyard (new neighbors yards, new parks, etc.), or go to places where I can see cars going by and work on my control and ability to listen to mom and not go bonkers, or train around other dogs - ones I know or don't know as I get all weirded out sometimes in those situations and don't even remember how to come to mom when she calls. You can make the challenge anything you want it to be. Video and/or pictures are always great but not required. We are going to post about our challenge every Sunday. If you have to miss a week, there is no penalty! :) But for the challenge to work, we all have to try to be consistent. During the weeks that we tried this with Marie, we felt just the right amount of pressure and obligation to do it and we got out there and it got a little easier as we went along. It's amazing how people miles and miles away can encourage you to grow and learn - this blogging and the internet are wonderful tools!

Let me know if you are going to participate in the training challenge and if someone is creative, come up with a good name for it and we'll use it! Let's get busy - the challenge starts......

NOW!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky

Friday and Saturday

On Friday mom and dad took me hiking in Hocking Hills State Park! We had been there before but not yet this summer and it was a perfect day weather-wise so we all decided to go! We took our lunch and had a picnic in the primitive campground. Then we went to a place called Cedar Falls and hiked and hiked! Our photos didn't turn out too great - the lighting is difficult and we only had mom's cheap camera. But we are sharing some pictures any way!

This is Cedar Falls - absolutely not one drop of water coming over the Falls - it has been a very dry September!
I was forced to pose in the dappled sunlight at the bottom of the steps I would soon have to climb!
The entire area is cliffs and caves and boulders and beautiful big trees!
Taking a break from strenuous hiking!
Wish the photo was better (funny because if you were there, you would've marvelled at the quality of the light)!

Any way, we had a great time! I was super tired and slept all the way home!

Then on Saturday mom said it would be our last sunny, nice day for awhile, so she set up a course in our backyard using all of our equipment (except a broad-jump type jump). She made the chute the first obstacle because we see that in trials all the time now. The weaves were the third obstacle (she wanted to see if I would do them early in the course since that was a problem at our last trial). She also put in a little distance stuff for fun. The dogwalk is going well except that any time we take the hoopy thing away from the contact zone, I jump the contact zone. We're not sure how we'll ever fix that issue. (I bailed on the dogwalk in class the other night when mom ran well ahead of me and tested me to see). But I did my tunnel/DW discrimination and then ran fast through the pinwheel that mom handled extremely unconventionally (on purpose?). It was very fun! On the video is my first try. We ran a few more times but the first was the best.

Hope you all had a great weekend! Congratulations to Team USA competing at the 2009 FCI Agility World Championships especially the Medium Team (including Jenn Crank and Blaster) winning the silver in the team competition! Way to go, Jenn!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky

Trip to Hocking Hills

Yesterday mom and dad took me to a beautiful place - Hocking Hills - in southern Ohio. It is a state park that is full of sandstone cliffs and recessed caves. Incredibly beautiful! And best of all, dogs are allowed on all of the hiking trails! The weather was perfect, too. About 80 degrees in the afternoon and low humidity. We got there a little before lunch and did a quick little hike in the Old Man's Cave area (no pictures because mom forgot her camera in the car!). Then we snuck in to the primitive campground and had lunch at a campsite. It was so quiet - absolutely no one was in there. Then we went to Cedar Falls and went on a big hike!
A view of the creek and some of the huge trees and lush ferns.
Another view of the creek and some of the big boulders.
Here is one of a sandstone rock formation.

There were lots of bridges to cross!
Here I am at Cedar Falls! The photo is not great but you can kind of get the idea!
We also had lots of steps to climb! It was a real work out for me - steps, big tree roots, boulders and rocks to climb over - we're talking major hiking!
Another view of a sandstone formation and cliff.
I got to play in the creek for a long time - Dad loves the water too and got right in to encourage me. I like to get wet but don't yet like to go in and really swim. As long as I can touch the bottom, I'm good.

Hocking Hills can get crowded, especially on nice weather days, but if you walk far enough, you can generally get away from most of the people. Then you really feel isolated and can take in the serenity and beauty of your surroundings. We heard lots of neat birds - hermit thrush, wood thrush, towhee, black-throated green warbler, red-eyed vireo, red-shouldered hawk - and saw some great butterflies - redspotted purple, fritillary, tiger swallowtail - but we didn't find any dragonflies!

It takes us a little over an hour to get to Hocking Hills. Perfect for me because I rested up on the way down and on the way back! Mom wishes the trip was a little shorter so that we could go more often. That sounds good to me too! I know I was a really good boy while we were there so hopefully we'll go back again soon!

Gotta zoom!

Ricky