Change Never Ends

Life is always changing, as I saw today with the Labraduo. I had both dogs with me on my bike ride this morning. I expected R to be the clown and pest that he used to be when he joined me and K for bike rides. He wasn't. In fact, he was a model citizen, teaching Shyla all about good behavior. The transformation in R over the past year has been shocking.

He was leading the way today, with his younger sister on his heels.

Despite her sensitive and sometimes-timid soul, Shyla has incredible drive and intensity. I see it when she races R, like in this photo. They were chasing a toy. I gave R a head-start because Shyla is much more driven about these games than he is, and she wins every time if I don't handicap her. You can see in the second photo in the series that she was gaining on him.

She didn't have any drive at all when she arrived last year. She seemed to try to cruise under the radar, attempting to hide in plain sight. She has changed completely in that way.

I think that our agility training has been a big part of the change in Shyla. As a formal part of agility training, I did exercises to build her toy drive. There's a whole routine that Susan Garrett describes in her agility book that we did regularly near the start of our agility training. Now, Shyla is insane about working for her toy! Oh my... she's really over the top. She doesn't want to take any breaks during training, and she never wants the training session to end. Isn't it wonderful that she's found such passion for play and training?

And, she adores playing with her brother. I rarely get photos of their wrestling because it's usually in the dark of the house. However, let me assure you that the early morning and evening play in our house is intense!

After my outing with the two pups, I headed out for a solo bike ride. I found some wild geraniums still blooming, and one had a beautiful green bug on it.

His color was a cool addition to the pink flower.

I visited some trail cameras and discovered that hunters have been scouring the area. I hope that our bears stay well hidden. I captured a few trail camera photos/videos of them that I'll share soon.

Our perpetually threatening skies plus smoke from faraway fires have led to some colorful sunsets. Here's another one for you today!

Life is always a mixture of pain and beauty. I try to let the beauty, fun, and love win out over the pain. It usually does.