Road Trip with Kali

Kali doesn’t get out to often these days.  At ten and a half she prefers instead to sleep much of the day and inside the house given the choice. After all these years she’s earned it.  Until recently Kloe was also house bound for much of the year due to her injury and then post surgery recovery period.   So for several months it’s mostly been just Koda who gets to get out of the house and accompany us on various errands and car rides.

Kloe is mostly cleared now for normal activities after her surgery so she has been getting out and walking more and coming along for various excursions.   Today we decided to head out to a favorite spot of ours to get our growler filled with apple cider and to enjoy the relatively mild day.  Our routine, now that Kloe is back on her feet so to speak, is to take the “red girls” with us when we go out and about.  Red girls being Kloe and Koda. Kali, the blondie or cream girl, typically stays behind content to sleep in peace without her sisters (or us) milling around and interrupting her daytime slumbers.

So we “geared” Kloe and Koda up with their harnesses and leashes, filled our pockets with treats, and headed towards the door to leave.  As I glanced back at Kali she flashed me sad eyes as if to say, “Can I go? I promise not to be any trouble and I’ll do my best to keep up with the younger Red Girls as we walk around even though my legs aren’t as strong as they used to be.  Can I go?”

I smiled at Kali and then hollered down to Holly who had already gone down the stairs to the garage,  “Road trip! Kali’s coming along.”

And for the first time in a long time we packed up all three girls into the car and headed out for a road trip with Kali and her posse.   It sure felt great to all be together on a short trip to one of our favorite places on a beautiful Fall day with our beautiful girls!

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ROADTRIP! Kali and her posse of red girls.

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Holly and “the girls”.

My Golden Therapy

When I turn into the driveway of the Golden K, my body tingles with anticipation of seeing “my girls” who will greet me at the gate or inside the house.

If they’re outside Kali and Kloe will trot to the rod iron gate at the first sound of my truck rolling up the Golden K driveway.  They watch me pull into the car port with their tails wagging and anticipating our physical and verbal greeting ritual.

If they’re inside the house I can usually see them through the windows of the doors.  Kali is usually sleeping right by the door and Kloe somewhere near Holly. As the door to the kitchen opens Kali springs to her feet and Kloe runs in to join us.  Kloe’s a little pushy and will always come to the front of the greeting line while Kali hangs back and patiently waits for her turn.The anticipation and intensity of the ritual increases the longer the time I’ve been away.

Lately I’ve been away a lot and for longer than usual periods…

Recently, both my mother and sister have been very sick.  It’s been a difficult few weeks and the seven hour round trip to and from the SF Bay Area to help with their care during this period took me away from my girls for several long days and a few over nighters.  The worry took an emotional tole and the hours driving, often in heavy traffic getting into or out of the West Bay, has been fatiguing.

But when I arrive back home and pull into the driveway the tingling begins and it slowly becomes better because of the healing powers of dogs.   In my case two very special, sweet, and tender dogs that in many ways define the Golden K.

Kali and Kloe.  My girls, my medicine, and my therapy.  My Golden therapy.

The driveway leading to The Golden K and my Golden Therapy

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The Girls chilling’ in the back of my truck

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What’s The Poop?

I guess that every blog about dogs eventually comes down to this topic.

Poop!

Ever since Kloe joined the pack there seems to be an abundance of poop.  Of course I expected the volume to increase (by 2) with two dogs but there defiantly seems to be an exponential affect with two dogs that make having two seem more like four.

To illustrate my point I’ll use last Friday morning as an example.  We have a large part of our property – around 50 yards long by 30 yards wide –  that is mostly for the dogs to roam and poop. We call it The Pen…. Kloe hangs out there sometimes to dig, find pine cones to chew on, and dart to and fro’ like the Tasmanian Devil (think Looney Tunes) when she’s tired of terrorizing Kali and needs to burn off some of her Golden puppy energy. For the most part the dogs know that when they “gotta go” that is where they gotta go.

It had been a few days since I picked up poop so there were numerous poopertunities for me to use the new scooper I had purchased the previous day.  I was pretty thorough and I’m certain that I captured every “dog pile” (Ok, I’ll slow down on the puns but hey – it’s a post about poop!) that my two sweet girls had left or me.

The very next  morning I wondered by The Pen and decided to go down to see what the poop was ((last pun – I promise).  I grabbed my new scooper and expected to find find three to four poopertunities (it doesn’t count because I already used it) to scoop. One scoop, two scoop, three scoop four.  Five scoop six scoop, seven poop more?!?  What the….? I stopped counting at 10 and it had been only 24 hours since my last endeavor in The Pen.

I know my dogs poop routine probable better that I should.  Kloe “goes” first thing in the morning when she gets up, after lunch, and usually one other time during the afternoon.  Kali goes during our morning walk and maybe one other random time during the day.  That adds up to four or five poops per canine pack members per day.  So why was there over 10 poopertunities for me Saturday morning??  I cannot say but I’m pretty sure there are other dogs jumping over the five foot cyclone fence that surrounds the Pen.

You might say, “but Michael, it would take a pretty athletic dog to jump a five foot fence and why would they do that just to poop and then jump out?”  And if you did say that I in turn would ask you how two dogs can poop over 10 times in a 24 hour period?

So that’s the poop.

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Part of The Pen.  Look closely – I’m sure you’ll find some “buried treasures”…

GPS – Golden Positioning System

Kali loves car rides.

When Holly is with me Kali lies down in the back seat and relies on us to the get to right place.  But apparently she has caught on to the fact that when Holly is in the car she tends to provide a lot of “input” about which road to take and where to turn.  So, when it’s just me and Kali, she insists on helping out with the navigation.  But Kali’s technique is a little different than Holly’s…

Kali will look to the skies and quickly establish connection with a satellite staying fixed on it in order to relay the correct coordinates to me, her pilot.  The cockpit is a little awkward for her but she doesn’t seem to mind and she almost always gets us to our destination on time and without incident.  Which is usually the pet store where treats and praise await my co-pilot.

Golden Positioning System

Golden Positioning System