Sunday Hikes and Dog Duties

In case you couldn't guess from that last post, we went hiking yesterday. Yes, even though it was raining we still got out there. We've made it a routine now to go for hikes as a family every Sunday, and another family from our neighborhood has been joining us. Even when the weather's not so great, it feels good to get out there in the woods and it's fun to share that with our friends. We're so lucky where we live because we have trails just a couple of miles from our house. This trailhead is only 3.5 miles away but taps into a ridgeline trail system along the hills behind our city and also has a spur that climbs a local butte.

Yesterday we did 4 miles including the climb up the butte. You can see that my tiny little puppy from a few months ago is now almost a full-fledged dog. Isn't she lovely? That's Sophie, aka Adventure Dog. She loves to go hiking and exploring and I think she'll be the best running dog ever. She's already the smartest dog I've ever known. As a sheepherd/cattle dog mix, she definitely needs to have jobs to do. One of her jobs is to go down to the chicken coop every morning and evening while we let the chickens out, and to guard the door to make sure no chickens come out the side door to the coop while we're in there. She takes this very seriously.

Yesterday morning, when Wayne asked Mackenzie to go down and let the chickens out, Mackenzie replied with the 13-year-old refrain "In a minute". But as soon as Sophie heard Wayne's request, she went into Mackenzie's room where he was working on the computer, and pawed at him until he got off and went to do their job. How smart is that? I'm so in love with this pup!