Another gorgeous January day was a good excuse to use our easy access from the Glen Cove Neighborhood to hike through Benicia State Park, which is one of the perks of living here. It’s great to have such good friends call us up for a spontaneous nature walk/hike.

The foster dogs didn’t know what to make of the journey. Hobbes was extremely nervous to get into the car. Unfortunately, the last few times he was in the car it was to get vaccinations or surgery, so we need to give them more positive experiences with car drives so he isn’t like this forever.

All four dogs got lots of exercise with a bunch of great smells. I keep reminding myself, especially with a blind dog in my life again, that dogs SMELL IN COLOR. When Shea was walking in front of me with the foster dogs, Calvin especially kept looking back to check on me and basically did a bunch of the hike walking backwards, which was endearing but worrisome. It kept getting him tangled in the tandem leash. Eventually I walked in front of them so at least Calvin was looking forward when looking for me. When the foster dogs were left on tandem and off-leash they were trying to stay so close to me that they kept wrapping around my ankles and almost knocked me over a few times.

Bonnie was terrific even off-leash for part of it. When she was on leash I even inspired her to run to catch up with the others for a while. For a blind dog, this is quite a feat, because she basically never runs for fear of running into something, especially in an unfamiliar location. She has to really trust me to keep up that pace. I intentionally ran with a heavy foot so that she could hear me better. Snoopy was also terrific when he was off-leash for part of the hike. He’s a perfect dog.

The views were terrific and I am so glad that we are so quickly moving to longer days, since it was just over a month ago that we had the winter solstice.