Gig Harbor

I crossed the Tacoma Narrows Bridge yesterday to Gig Harbor. Gig Harbor is a small fishing community, on a separate island west of Seattle. The people are very nice, and it is a really cute area.

This guy walked up to me while I was looking at this awesome tree and told it is called a Monkey Tail Tree!


Tug Boat:

Me!

Fisherman's memorial:


The Dock:

Rustified!

Action!!!

Here are some videos of me and Luke working in action with the dogs.

Workin' It

Training! Lots of training! Last week I first started training with field problems. My boss puts pin flags in a field, with a scat next to it, so we know where it is. Then we take out a dog and search for the scat. As handlers we are responsible for directing the dogs to where we want them to search, much easier said than done. The dogs are super high energy and want to work, so to get them to calm down and little to you can be hard. We are also in charge of knowing the wind patterns and how they affect where we are searching, and how often they change. This is all very important for the dogs' to find a scat and to be searching the correct area. Last week we also trained on sit problems. Pin flags with scats are set up in a line, close together, and we take the dogs on-leash to each one. Once they have determined "yes this is the type of scat I am looking for, yay" we tell them to Sit! so that they correlate finding a scat with sitting. This week we did field problems and trail problems. Trails add a whole new dimension. Air is often funneled by trails, and we also have to direct the dogs to work off-trail, around trees, logs, holes, etc. I really sucked my first time, because I was the first person to go, without seeing an example. So I did everything wrong! But I worked 3 more dogs and got better each time. I ended with Shrek, who is extremely energetic. And, to top it off, he saw a cat on the way to the problem, and got really crazy. It took a while to calm him down, as much as I could. But, he was a great dog to work. I also worked Orion, who is also pretty crazy. He listened really well, took direction and worked great. However, he is really ball insane. After doing well with 'drop its! and leave its!' he lunged at the ball and took a chunk of my finger with it. So I rolled him, showing him who's boss. Then he did it a few more times, so he got rolled again. Not anything new for the silly boy. This week ended with a more difficult trail problem. I got to watch a few other experienced handlers do their thing, and learned a lot! They are much more quiet, relaxed and calm. I'm sure partially because the dogs know them, so they do not have to extert so much force and because they already have an established working relationship. But in the end, I worked Alli, and really tried to emulate what the experienced handlers did. I think I was pretty successful-I was happy with my performance.

Here are some pics of me working Alli - so cute!


Stay!


Alli found a scat, so she sat, and was signalled to stay:


Sampson: he is cute, but the biggest whiner!



Max: a really good dog.



Mason, getting ready to work:


Tucker, Max, and Alli - they are all play buddies:

Seattle!

My Seattle trip was rainy and filled with traffic. The joys of a big city. Downtown Seattle has an uncanny resemblance to San Francisco. The streets are very hilly, with tons of ups/downs, hardly any parking. Tons of streetlights, and muni-type buses! And, the architecture is kinda similar.

I went to the public market...yea pretty touristy, but I still wanted to see it. Lots of vendors and junk that I don't need.


Of course I had to go to Pike's Fish Market, to watch the guys throw salmon across the walkway!


An interesting sign:


And there are Russians!


More Germans! I can't get them to stop following me, haha.

OMG! These shelves were full of German chocolate bars. I never knew there could be so many kinds of Ritter Sport!


I did go on Halloween...

A Blast From the Past!

Small Mammal Crew, goodtimes:




Donner Lake Open Water Swim, Truckee River:


Lava Beds, where the camera broke:


Farallones!

Rainier, Round 2!

Yesterday I went back to Mt. Rainier, to so some actual sight-seeing. It wasn't raining, which was a plus, but it was pretty cloudy. I was able to see the top of the mountain for a little while, then it got snowy and covered with clouds.

Here is a glacial scar from the Nisqually Glacier:


The glaciers are really visible:


I finally made it to Paradise, where the view of Rainier is supposed to be awesome. It was, but that is when it got snowy. I did see a climber in the ice field trekking along-scary! The wildflower meadows were beautiful with their autumn colors!

This is Narada Falls:

I took a break to eat a cookie, and this little guy decided to sit on my car door, and steal crumbs:

A Day Off!

So I got my first days off after about a week and a half of work. Nice! I did a bunch of errands, super fun, and then I went da da da...the capitol of Washington...Olympia! Yea, it was pretty anticlimactic. I stopped off at the Olympic National Park visitor center, but the park was still a few hours away (weird) and got info on where to go with the few hours I had to kill. So I went to the farmer's market. And what do I find there?

I can't get away from those dang Germans! Hahahaha!! Prost!

I got lunch at this joint...the crab melt was more cheese than anything else, so I was not impressed.

I wanted to go the Japanese Garden...which was clearly marked on my map. But after driving in squares around the vicinity for about 20 minutes, I couldn't find it and gave up - it does not exist! So then I drove around more and got lost for a bunch more time. So I gave up, and decided to go to Tumwater. I ended up at a park where the salmon swim up-river to spawn in the fall, but no salmon.



I was pretty frustrated, and I started to run into traffic, so I drove around just a little more, and got to see more beautiful fall colors. Autumn here is totally different than at home...there are color changes! Can you see the capitol building?