Subject: summer camp is almost over 4 Mr Wesley

Well, nothing lasts forever! So we finally got the dreaded email from Lauren on Thursday and today was Wesley's last Sunday River Walk with us - at least until he comes back to visit! Last night all four of us went up to PetSmart and Wesley led us around and picked out his going away presents. Which he doesn't get to have until he, of course, actually goes away, but at least he got to take a picture with a couple of them. He got a couple of other fun things that didn't make the picture because Ivory was lurking in the shadows, thinking maybe he deserved a gift or two. Here's Wesley with two of his presents:

And here's a picture of the three of us at the river this morning (Thanks Clare!) :












One more shot from today, also courtesy of Clare:

Whoever coined the phrase "It's a dog's life"...

...had obviously never met Wesley. Because Wesley goes on summer vacation - no big deal, I'm sure lots of dogs get to go on summer vacation. But Wesley gets to take a vacation from his vacation! It's like you live in Richmond and you get to fly to Hawaii for the summer and while you're in Hawaii you take a week or two and run down to Cancun. He's been camping and swimming and hiking here all summer, then his mom comes and picks him up and takes him to the beach for a week! It's a trial to be Wesley. Here are a couple of pictures his mom sent back; I'll post more later:

Wesley hanging out at the beach:









Wesley on the deck with his pal:









Wesley smiling in the ocean:

We got to go camping again!

We're just having way too much fun. I'll put up a few pictures right now and a few more later. We left on the afternoon of Saturday the 21st and came back on Sunday. Until I can get back to this, here are a few shots:












The picture above is Wesley when he's just gotten out of the car at the top of the trail - he knows right where he is and he's ready to hike.


This was a striking view about midway on the hike down:









If there's water around, Wesley will find it - I think he's looking for fish:

Wesley gets a bath!

Somebody's flea repellent is not working. I don't know if it's Ivory's or Nicky's or Wesley's but Wesley is the only one going for a visit with his mom so he was the first one in the tub. He's exactly like Ivory when he takes a bath - he cooperates, but he lets you know in no uncertain terms that he'd rather be nearly anyplace else on the planet than that bathtub. I paid the vet for flea repellent - I wonder if he'll pay me for the bottle of flea shampoo?

Another Sunday morning at the river

There's no such thing as a bad Sunday morning at the river. It's always just a playground for dogs and today there was just a huge bunch there. Wesley of course threw himself into the thick of it - he doesn't know the meaning of the word "shy." Before we went to the river he sat down on the steps to the laundry room, waiting for me to get ready. This is the sight I'm greeted with whenever I walk in the back door:












After we hiked for a while this morning we came to the second beach; dogs normally congregate there but today was exceptional:














I'm not kidding, I'll bet that picture only has half the dogs in it - the rest were either in the woods or behind us or upstream or downstream - there were just dogs everywhere. Notice Ivory in the lower left, surveying the scene, and Wesley just coming up in front of him.











This is Wesley bounding out of the water for about the hundredth time - he should be in the picture dictionary next to "exuberant." That's the lovely Annabelle to the left of him; I don't know those other three out there swimming around.




















This guy was throwing retrieving dummies for his Labs - they were superb athletes and swam like they had gills. Plus they knew the game. But Wesley picked up on it quick and started waiting there every time the guy wound up for a throw. If I brought Charles down here, he and Wesley could play all day!

It's been almost three weeks!

Since our last entry! Wow. How embarrassing. Times have not been dull, just too busy to spend ten minutes in front of a computer. That's the way it goes in summer. We've had one other camping trip (at Bear Creek Lake State Park in Cumberland) and even had another canine guest (the lovely Marta) and haven't put any pictures up! I'll remedy that soon. But today was lovely and Ivory and Nicky and Wesley and I were able to spend some quality time with our old pal Charles. So here are a couple of pictures from today, and I'll get a couple of others up soon.

Wesley goes camping.

Not really. I just got a new tent and was practicing setting it up in the back yard. Wesley immediately jumped in and made himself at home. Maybe he's been camping before? He sure looked like he knew what he was doing.