Cheyenne Mountain Zoo!

So after the Lucky Dog Jog and after my car got broken in to, I decided why not go to the zoo!?  So Caitlin, Kathleen and I all went off to the zoo and had some fun.  Told through pictures and some video...

Lucky Dog Jog and assholes

So the Lucky Dog Jog was today.  I walked the course.  I was going to run it but injuries and laziness do seem to be a prevailing theme in my life so walking it was.  THANK GOD!  That was a really really really hard course.  I strong armed my brother and my dad into running it and man I felt bad about that.  They really struggled up and down those hills.  I also strong armed Kathleen and Caitlin into walking with me but I didn't feel as badly at that.

I thought it went well.  Whitman seemed to have a good time.  The only bad thing was that someone broke into my car and took my purse.  Yeah.  Asshole!

The good thing is that when they were pulling my purse out from under my seat my wallet and passport fell out.  Basically they got a $20 purse and a half broken iPod.  Have fun with that.  God will get you and it will suck.  Sheila, another rescue lady, got her window smashed and everything taken so I am glad I didn't have to deal with that.  I would have been REALLY upset if they had gotten my wallet and passport.  That will teach you not to carry EVERYTHING to identify yourself in your purse and then leave it in the car.  Your criminal may not be as stupid as mine.

Anyway, all in all it was a good day.

I feel bad that I haven't been planning for this as hard as I should.  Next year I'll be better.  Promise!

Baker Extraordinaire!

I totally dibbed being the new baker at Powers!

EEEEE!

So before I get ahead of myself, I was not pleased about being moved to the new store for my job.  I wanted to stay at the store that I was trained at but I am sure glad that I did move because now I get to be the new baker.  Yes.  I will get paid to bake treats for doggies!

The current baker got a better job offer so he is quitting.  I kind of heard it through the grape vine and I quite literally dibbed it.  So after a few days of training I am ready to start baking!  It's not really all that hard and I wanted him out of my kitchen to begin with so I'm not sore that I didn't get very much training.

Now my job is to make things like this:

It's okay.  You can admit it.  You're a wee bit jealous of me.

SUCK IT!  I'm making pupcakes!

F you! You know who you are!

Life never leaves me high and happy.  It does find ways to knock me down.  Mostly I'm talking about my current training job.  I love LOVE training.  I love LOVE working with dogs.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE the trainers and apprentices I work with.  Those are the things that are keeping me from walking.

I'm frustrated though.  I feel that I am consistently mistreated and undervalued there.  I feel like it is a poison in my life.  People tell me to walk but I just can't seem to make that jump.  It's because I'm freaking loyal to the people I love and I really love the two people I work closely with.

I don't know what to do.

Pub Crawl Zombie Style

What's the best way to do a pub crawl?  Zombie-like of course!

So that's exactly what I did yesterday.  Colorado Springs has a zombie pub crawl down Tejon, which is much more bad ass than I thought Colorado Springs could be.  So of course I drag my girls out.

Too much fun.  Pictures everyone!

Caitlin is a HAPPY zombie!

This guy was dressed in Umbrella Swat head to toe.  Coolest.  Thing.  Ever.  And if you don't know what it is then do some zombie research!

Cute boy!

Anyway, so I had a blast and yes that was made better by the attention I was getting from a certain boy.  Yes there were kisses but I do have very good friends who dragged me home.  Still... gave out my number AND he used it.

So all is good.  Zombified last night.  Happy human girl today.

Indigo Mountain

I've been pretty sick and almost completely spaced that today the LDU group had a trip planned to head up into the mountains to visit Indigo Mountain Nature Center.  The women of Indigo Mountain rescue high content wolf dogs from around the country and bring them here to live out their lives.  These are wolf-dogs that are either too high content wolf to be pets or wolf-dogs that have had bad experiences with people and have issues.  They also have bears, which I didn't know.

Anyway, I was really surprised to see that many of their canines are very old.  That made me happy to see that they take them all and really keep them for life.  It's really an incredible place.  We got a long tour of the center and got to see many of the pretty dogs.  Many of them gave the wolf vibe for sure. Many of them are very high content and really are more wolf than dog.

The tour was very interesting but having been sick and up in the mountains moving around in the heat, I started getting really light headed.  I thought about pushing through it and not saying anything but I was pretty sure I was going to pass out.  So I sat down and a few people went back to the cars and brought me a snack and some water.  After that I bounced back up and was fine.  Knowing me and how sensitive I am to heat, it was kind of stupid of me to not bring more than one bottle of water and not to bring a granola bar.  But I just mooched off of other people and lived through it.  Good thing too because there were lots of other cool things we got to do.

We got to enter this large enclosure with a pack of four very high content wolf-dogs.  We wanted to sit and interact with them.  I had a bait bag on so I turned out to be very popular.  That was pretty cool because the shiest of the wolf-dogs actually came up to me and was eating out of my hands.  I even got to scratch his head.  The volunteers that have been there for over a year were pretty jealous because even they haven't gotten to touch him before.  Not going to lie, that had me tickled a bit.

The wolf-dogs would come up and scent roll on you.  Scent rolling means they bodily rub their cheeks and necks on you.  I got scent rolled twice and even though I was sitting, it almost knocked me into the ground.  Here are some pictures:

The shy one is the dark back you can just barely see here.

The other really cool thing we got to do was clicker train a bear.  Oh yes, you heard me correctly.  They are teaching the bears to stand up on all fours and move around to be examined.  The best way to do that with big or dangerous animals is through clicker training.  We use this cool clicker that has a ball on a stick on it.  The bear is targeting the little ball at the end of the stick and when she touches it with her nose (or more often, her weird reaching lips) you click and give her a peanut.  She ate the peanuts out of our hands through the fence.  It was so cool!  More pictures:

Although it sucked being sick, I am very happy that we went.  After a long day playing with wolf-dogs and bears, we headed down the mountain and had some pizza.  I love my ladies of LDU!  A day I will never forget.