Cactus Hiking

This area is nothing if not prickly. Many, many cactus of different varieties, bushes with thorns, prickers on the ground. I brought heavy-duty dog booties down with us for Bella's tender city feet, just in case...

Today we joined a group of women and their dogs (two miniature poodles and a scruffy pup of mixed heritage) for a hike into the foothills behind town. Of course, I didn't bring my camera. Sorry, no shots, but I promise to try and snap some pictures in the future.

I asked some of the people before we went if they used booties on their dogs and they just snorted. We were hiking dirt roads, not into the cactus per se, so Bella also went shoeless. If she was going to go into the brush, this was a perfect occasion to learn what things needed avoiding and I'm pleased to report that she managed beautifully. She loved the scruffy dog, was not particularly interested in the poodles, marched ahead of all of us and waited for me to catch up when too much distance accumulated.

We left around 7:30AM. Although I'm normally up then, I'm not really functioning, so it took some effort to get enough coffee under my belt to converse intelligently! The temperature was great...even somewhat chilly. We finished up two hours later and you could already feel that it was going to be a hot day. Bella's tongue was long, but she learned as a young pup to drink from a bicycler's water bottle (which I had brought for her), so at least, she had plenty of water. I ended up pouring my bottle into hers.

Now, back at Casa Bella (my name for our house), she's conked out on the cool tile floors until it's time to play again.