Lupines Galore!

We just returned from a weekend of camping - in the rain again - at Stub Stewart State Park. It's Oregon's newest state park and only about 45 min. from us. The lupines were in full bloom. No dog pictures in this blog post - just lots and lots of lupines. Enjoy.

There were a couple of little birds building a nest in the brush right next to our site. I caught him with a mouth full of grass.

Portland ranked #1 dog-friendly city

From the KATU web site:

PORTLAND, Ore. - Portland is top in the nation when it comes to being dog friendly, according to a recent ranking in BellaDOG Magazine.
The magazine crowned our city as #1 because of its dog-friendly restaurants, natural landscapes and numerous dog parks. And here is the magazine's recommendations for the best spots and resources:

• Recommended off-leash dog park - Gabriel's Summer Park
• Recommended dog-friendly restaurant - Lucky Lab
• Recommended Portland dog resources - PortlandPooch.com and PDXDog.com.

Here's a look at the rest of the list:

• 1 - Portland, Oregon
• 2 - Las Vegas, Nevada
• 3 - St. Petersburg, Florida
• 4 - Miami, Florida
• 5 - Tampa, Florida
• 6 - San Francisco, California
• 7 - Jersey City, New Jersey
• 8 - Albuquerque, New Mexico
• 9 - Jacksonville, Florida

A Little Trickster

Sunday was the Pets on Parade event in Lake Oswego.

We attended as a representative of the Delta Society. As a group we walked in the Grand Parade, but Kendall and I participated in the "Entertainers" category of the event. She has a little routine of tricks she does when she gets a treat. So far she can sit, down, bow, spin, shake, roll over, speak, and stand and we're working on Bang (you're dead). Her bag of tricks won her 1st prize in the category. She even got a trophy for winning.

There were dogs of all shapes and sizes there.

There was even a pony in the parade. There was also a police dog there who gave a demonstration.

Some random pictures from the day:

Meeting Spencer's Mom

One of the highlights of a recent business trip to Washington DC was a visit with Whitney of The Preppy Pink and Green Puppy blog. We have left lots of comments on each others blogs but had never met in person - until last week. We had a great time out for drinks at McCormick and Schmicks.

Bark in the Park 2010

As promised, I finally got got back on the computer this evening to post some pictures. Way back on May 7th, we took Kendall to the last Bark in the Park at the Portland Beavers baseball game. They're no longer going to be based out of Portland, OR after the end of this season. Usually they schedule two per season, but for some reason, there is only one this year. It was scheduled really early in the season and wasn't very well advertised, so attendance was really low.

The seats that the company where I work have are right behind the dugout of the opposing team. Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of room by your feet, so Kendall doesn't fit behind the wall very well. We went down and hung out in the beer garden where there is a lot more room.

The seats were a little low for her.

This is a fun picture with the Drop Top Amber dog in the background.

We're going to miss going to the baseball games once or twice a year.

Blame it on the iPad

I can't believe it's June 13th already. Where did the time go? I realized today that I haven't posted in awhile and you can blame that on my iPad. Turns out that since I got this thing I hardly ever look at my laptop when I'm home. I spend all day on the computer and the iPad is a great way to keep up with Facebook and message boards without really breaking out the computer.

I also found that I'm less likely to pound out a long email or make a blog post with the small onscreen keyboard. I haven't figured out yet how to post pictures. Don't worry. I'll break out the computer soon and post all of the pictures I'm storing up.


Posted from my iPad.

We're now official!

Last week I received my badge from the Delta Society. Now Kendall and I are officially registered as a Pet Partner therapy team. I did some visiting of some facilities around us to find us a place to start visiting. I went to one that had a wonderful program in place and already had a couple of Pet Partner teams coming in to do visits weekly. The nursing home where I decided that we're going to do our volunteering is one that doesn't currently have any teams visiting and is quite a large facility. I thought that their residents might benefit a bit more from having us visit.

Our first visit is Thursday! I went today for a tour and to meet some of the staff. I'm on my own on Thursday. I don't know exactly what that's going to be like, but my plan is to just go in and let Kendall sniff around and get comfortable with the place. It'll probably be a very short visit. I did meet a nice woman today who loves dogs. We'll be sure to stop and say hi to her.

We're going to visit twice a month for the next six months and see how it goes. I'm excited but a bit unsure. I'm sure I'll have lots to pass along.