splash!

After the 3:30 meeting this afternoon with the parents of new students, I went for a walk with some of the other staff and their dogs. Chadd & Nikie came, Steve & Janelle brought Marley, Andy brought Gracie, and Randy brought Abner. I'll explain who the 4th dog is further down.

There is a pond out in the field behind Don & JP's that we took the dogs to because they like retrieving sticks from the water. Andy claims there is still a racquetball out there somewhere too that Gracie wouldn't bring back from the last time. This first picture is Marley. She's a lab mix and used to live in my apartment with Steve & Janelle.

Andy and Randy's dogs are both Weimeraners (sp?). Gracie is Andy & Becky's dog and she is VERY loyal and always wants to know what Andy is doing. She's on anxiety medicine b/c she goes crazy when Andy leaves the house.

She definitely gets the "Best Jumper Award" for chasing sticks in the pond, as you can see in the picture (click to enlarge). She took a flying leap every single time. Andy said she's a lot of fun to throw things for off of a dock because she still jumps way out. She and Marley came back holding onto the same stick one time! Marley likes to be the pirate of the pond and steal the other dogs' sticks.

This is Abner. He's Randy Bishop's dog and is quite a bit larger than Gracie. He's not really this red looking, but was in the evening sunlight, so it masks his gray color in the picture. He doesn't take flying leaps, but charges right into the water after the sticks. When we walked through the woods, he would pick up small logs and want us to throw them for him.

We took a pretty good hike from the pond down into some of the trails on what they call the "Back 40." We walked until we got to a big rock/small waterfall thing in the stream. The dogs had fun running and jumping on it. Gracie likes bounding over the trees that have fallen over the trail. In this picture, she cleared a branch 3 feet high and then over a couple of other parts spread out over about 5 feet. She's crazy! I had to use flash b/c the woods were so dark.

And the last dog . . .

He's our resident stray dog. He has a collar on, but no tags. This is kind of funny because a student made a tag for him today that said "Take me home Carrie" that several people saw. He's still a puppy and likes to chase cars and bark a lot. I think Steve and Janelle might keep him to have a playmate for Marley, and will call him Harper. I'm not attached to him, but I did feed him 3 pieces of bread and part of a donut! ; )