Monday, September 30, 2013

- Lake Puppy

Did you know that Emma can swim?  Most people assume she can't because her legs are so short.  But I've heard that all dogs can swim - and Emma is no exception.
photo 4
I'm so behind in blogging that I need to go back like 4 months (where did summer go?!) to when my friend Danielle invited Emma and I up to her lake house in Wisconsin.  Everyone up here has lake houses.  It's like such a thing.  And no one is anyone unless they have a lake house, or at the very least, a friend with a lake house.

I'm a fan of any friend that likes Emma a fraction as much as I do.  And anytime that an invitation extended to me includes Emma is the icing on the cake.  Because that dog loves car rides.  And adventures.

Danielle's lake house is a perfect weekend.  There might not be cell phone coverage.  It's far north enough that fall weather is always a possibility.  Campfires are a certainty.  You can see the milky way on a clear night.  There are SO many stars.  There's a great townie bar with a mystery shot waiting for you on a saturday night.  If this place had a theme song it would be "Little Bit of Summer" by John Mayer:
Side note: if my summer had a theme song this would be it - are you kidding me with this lyric; "Because a little bit of summer is what the whole year's all about"  TRUE STORY.

Side side note: His new CD is totally my jam right now.  I once wrote a blog post on how much I begrudgingly love John Mayer.  I don't think I published it.  Anyways, I don't know how you cannot love a song like Comfortable Love or Gravity or Wheel.  Even if a douchbag is the one singing you the words.

Side side side note: I have had many solo late night dance parties to this song.  I just can't sit still when it's playing.

But the best part about the cabin is the nature.  I love going places where there is no way to escape the nature.  Emma does too.  At Danielle's lake house there is a long staircase down to a simple beach.  The kind where the sand gradually drops off into the depth of the water.
That beach was Emma's own personal heaven all weekend.  She spent more time in the water and swimming than she ever had before.  She really came into her own as a "Lake Puppy".  I thought she might be too scared to really enjoy the swimming part, but I underestimated how much Emma likes to fetch a stick.  Even if it is floating away from her on the water's surface.
Somebody's butt floats

I thought she would be too nervous to "walk the plank" out to the dock, but she never even thought twice.  She loved running out to the dock and spent most of her time looking into the clear water at what was floating below.
Keeping an eye on things
Rolling in the sand after swimming
Wet puppy.

One weekend I left the cabin a little early on Sunday so that Emma and I could spend some time hiking in the St. Croix state park.  I'd heard it was really pretty where the Kettle and St. Croix rivers converge. So we took a 13 mile drive out a gravel road to get to the trail head.  The trail mostly follows the shore of the Kettle river and I mean I guess it was pretty scenic...
photo 1
It took about 3 hours for us to do the hike.  Emma got a little tired once so I carried her for a bit, but she dislikes being carried so much that she found her second wind pretty quickly.  While it was pretty...
And it was definitely pretty...
It totally sucked that I had to spend an hour pulling over 50 ticks off of Emma before we could get into the car to head home.  Then even though we got home late and she was super tired from swimming and hiking all weekend I forced her to take a bath and tolerate me combing through her fur to remove another 20 or so ticks.  SO MANY TICKS.
I thought it might be a fluke that Emma was so into the water.  But a few months later we went on a walk around a nearby lake, and since it was a hotter day than usual my black dog got a bit weary.  Right when we were a nearby beach with a gradual drop off, and sticks...
photo 2 photo 3
I don't have a picture of it, but my favorite part is when she just swims out to do a circle around someone.  She's not chasing a stick.  She's just swimming because she wants to...and she can.
And that's the story of how I ended up with a Lake Puppy.