The thing that Mark and I have figured out with Lola is that she still has a puppy brain. Everything she does fits this explanation. This realization is good because when I think of her as a puppy I get a lot less frustrated with her. I can just think, “well she’s just a puppy still. She doesn’t know any better”. It really helps.

Mark and I decided to go camping yesterday. The plan was to leave in the morning yesterday and come home late tonight.  We’re already home and it’s not late tonight. In fact we got home by 1:00 in the afternoon.

We thought it would be cool to take Lola with us. Dogs love camping, right? Well not Lola. Everything started out okay. We chained her into the back of the truck and drove to the campsite. When we got there Lola was pretty excited to get out of the truck. She jumped out, ran around a bit, and pooed in camp. I buried it quickly and we went down to the river. Lola jumped in and peed. Bah! Anyway, we set up camp quickly and without too much trouble from Lola. She did keep jumping on our bedding with her wet and muddy body but that wasn’t too annoying.

We then decided to go on a hike. We went up a river that is absolutely beautiful. It has waterfall after waterfall and is breathtaking. It was hard to pay attention to the beauty though because Lola was CONSTANTLY getting in front of our feet and tripping us. It was so frustrating! At first it was funny but it started to get a little dangerous on the precarious river. I even fell and smashed my thumb and wrenched the nail back because she got where I needed to step one time. Ouch!

We went back to camp after that and made lunch. I made sure to bring plenty of doggie snacks for Lola so she hopefully wouldn’t try to steal our food too much. It didn’t work. She ate all the doggie snacks we could give her, plus 2 bowls of dog food and would still not stop grabbing, and jumping, and snapping at our food. I mean she was relentless! We were so hungry and she WOULD NOT let us eat in peace. We were both at the end of our patients at that point so we decided we had better tie her up. I didn’t want her to feel left out or isolated so we tied her right in camp where she was only a few feet from us. She threw a fit. She whined, barked, grumbled ( I mean that literally), and turned her back on us (still whining). We realized that having her close to us was just making it worse for her so we tied her a little ways from camp. We tried to get her to where she couldn’t see us but I think she still could because that was when the barking started. On and on and on. She barked until 2:00 in the morning and then started up again at 6:00 in the morning. Not funny. Not funny at all. Mark and I both slept horribly Not only was it noisy and distracting but I was paranoid that coyotes or a mountain lion would come and grab an easy noisy prey. We’ve heard coyotes in those mountains before!

Well this morning we got up, packed up camp and came home. So much for having any time at all in the mountains.   When I brought Lola back into the back yard and put her on her usual chain she walked right over to the shade and sat down, content as could be. Lola is never going camping with us again.

Well, Lola has been as crazy as ever lately. Yesterday my husband and I decided to go for a drive in the mountains. We wanted to take Lola but we didn’t want her to leap out to her doom again so we chained her in to the back of the truck. Mark made the chain just long enough that she could look over the side but not jump out. We drove up into the mountains and then saw a really beautiful spot to stop and take some pictures so we got out and started walking away from the truck. I looked back (thank goodness) just in time to see Lola leap out of the truck and dangle by her neck from the side of the truck! OH MY GOODNESS!!! I about had a heart attack! I ran to her and lifter her and as fast as I could unfastened the chain that was attached to her collar. She bounded off merrily towards Mark tail wagging away as if nothing had happened at all. That dog is insane.

She was awesome today though. I took her for a run after dark and as I was jogging along a dog came charging at me from the side snarling and acting like it was going to attack me. Lola, who had been ahead of me suddenly turned and bolted at the dog, snarling and barking right back. I couldn’t tell if she actually bit it or what but it ran away yelping and whining. YES! GO LOLA! She is such a good friend. I love her. Even though I did trip over her and scrape my knee when she ran at the dog. She’s my girl. Yah!

My husband and I are working on a collaborative project. When he takes a photo that inspires me I do a painting of it. The last 2 peices that I blogged about were part of this project as well as 2 others that I blogged about in the past.  I thought you might like to see the photos next to the paintings. We’re going to present our idea to galleries and see what they think. It’s a cool idea because the photos are art in and of themselves and the drawings are art in and of themselves. When you see them side by side you see the beauty and uniqueness of each piece and each style of art. They compliment each other and together become a new and original form of art. So here you go. The photos next to the drawings.