Springtime: The Duo and The Bears

Recently, I had both halves of the Duo for a morning mountain bike ride.

We had lots of fun playing atop Hug Hill.

And, later that day, a chocolate and a black bear cub played nearby. Their colors reminded me of Shyla and R.

It turned out to be a big day of bear activity. My trail cameras monitored a large male bear, probably Tiny, who walked about 5 miles in the afternoon, marking trees along the way. I made a video of his travels that you can watch here or at Youtube.

There's some true video in this one so it's fun to watch (at least, for me!).

Happy Springtime!

A hike to remember - elk, moose, and a fiery sunset

The Labraduo and I set off for our evening hike. Within about 100 yards of our house, I first smelled and then saw the entire elk herd in an aspen grove next to the trail. I kept the dogs on leash (that's where I often let them run), and we went around the herd. Here's a photo of about a third of the herd that I took earlier today.

This evening, we were hustling up to a plateau where we could see the sunset. As we emerged from the forest onto the open plateau, we discovered that a moose pair was standing in our sunset photography spot.

We were a long distance from them, and I didn't have my wildlife lens with me so that was a very cropped photo. However, it showed me immediately that this is a different mother moose than the one who charged me last week. Last week's mother moose had an old injury to her right ear that gave it a "clipped" look.

So, now we have two mother-calf moose pairs spending time in the forest near us. I think that the introduction of moose to Colorado has been a success! During today's encounter, I tried making some noise from a long distance away to see if this pair might move away from us. Nope - they just stared. And, then R decided to bark at them. So, we retreated. They are the first wildlife who live in our forest who don't run from humans or dogs.

Since the moose were occupying our sunset photography spot, we went over a ridge into the forest, where the difference between the two dog's reactions to seeing the moose was obvious. I have never seen Shyla so wide eyed!

In contrast, R seemed puffed up with confidence, and he continuously stared intently in the direction of the moose. He seemed to think that he needed to protect us women-folk from the huge animals we'd just seen.

Needless to say, the dogs didn't get any off-leash time this evening.

We did get to see a glorious sunset. While Shyla and I sat on a boulder watching it, R stood sentry behind us, continuing to stare in the direction of the moose.

It is the wild west here. I love it.

Sibling Bond

This particular Labraduo has a closer bond than almost any of our other pairs. This photo gives you some idea of that bond.

Even though R is definitely the "big brother" and leader of the Duo, he let Shyla rest her chin on him while they stood atop Hug Hill. So sweet.

I feel as if my luck is turning, after a series of small bad things that have happened over the past month. One good luck thing was that this photo got "Explored" at Flickr, which means that it was highlighted and a lot of people visited to view it. It was dumb luck that I captured the photo - I just happened to have my camera out when the Duo decided to do something cute!

Good News!

I thoroughly enjoyed my days of mountain biking with both halves of the Labraduo! R made me laugh about a million times per ride.

He loves to sing, especially when a camera is pointed at him.

My laughing seems to make him sing even more!

He goes between barks, howls, and sounds that defy description.

I know that he's putting on a show for me because I catch him throwing quick glances my way, as if he's gauging my reaction. Look at that sneaky peek at me.

It's fairly rare that Shyla is this goofy. When it happens, it's usually when it's just her and me, with no one else to observe, including R. So, she remained demure throughout R's concert.

R did have something to sing about. It appears that I have succeeded in getting my photos taken down from the site that was so brazenly stealing them and then earning money whenever someone visited the page. My friend from the Thundering Herd kindly and patiently taught me the steps for dealing with this type of problem. The biggest one was to follow the directions at this site to send a DMCA takedown notice. I honestly hope that none of you ever have to do this - but it seems to be becoming a reality of the web.

I hope that I won't be reporting tomorrow that the site was only temporarily dismantled.

But, for now, I'm optimistic. R is shouting the good news from the aspen groves!

Happy Friday!