Little Dogs on the Prairie and LOTS of Balls

We visited Meadowlark Prairie with the dogs.  It is an urban setting that was restored from agricultural land to its original prairie and wetlands habitat in the 1990s.  It’s a popular area for walking, biking, wildlife viewing and picnicking.  The paved path encircles the 404 acre site.  Needless to say, we have not yet made it all the way around!!  Maybe someday, but we are going a bit farther every time we come.  It’s another great place for dog walking and there are places you can go down into the prairie area off the paved pathway. 



We came across this beautiful Northwestern Ringneck Snake along the path.


Apparently they are rarely seen, preferring to move about after dark.  I thought this one was dead at first but when I touched it, it moved.  I thought it was enjoying some sun but after looking more closely at the pictures, I wonder if it was injured.


There were many ducks, geese and other water fowl in the wetlands area of the prairie.  This duck seems to have found a nice resting place.


There were hundreds of geese gathered in a field across the road.  The wind was blowing towards the dogs from this field and they stood for the longest time just sniffing the scent of geese.  Didn’t bark or try to move – just figuring out the scent.

This is the view from one end of the prairie.


This is even closer to our house than the lake is so we have a couple of great exercise areas with 15 minutes or less.

The weather has been wonderful the last couple of days so we have spent a lot of time in the backyard with the dogs.  They love to play ball and get super excited when I approach their bucket of balls.  I am trying to teach them to calm down so as soon as they start barking, I move away from the balls.  When they stop barking I move closer.  In the following video, Ollie throws quite a temper tantrum when he doesn’t get his balls right away.  Jewel catches on and quiets down pretty quickly.  This was yesterday and it took maybe 5 minutes of barking before they settled down.  Today went much quicker – just a couple of minutes.  Then they sat quietly while I got the balls.  Turn your speakers down or OFF so you don’t hear all the barking!!
)

Russ took all video and no stills of this session so I snagged a couple of shots from the video. The quality is not great since these photos are from the video footage, but you can see how Jewel likes to jump and catch.   Ollie loves to run flat out as fast as he can to chase the balls.  Jewel does not want to chase – she wants to turn somersaults and catch the balls.  So I throw one long for Ollie and then toss one to Jewel for catching.  Woe be to me if I don’t take turns and make sure they each get the same number of balls!!





Look how that right leg is way up there!






Catch ya later!!