Walter's Christmas Gift

Walter and I have been lying a bit low the past month. We have had our usual little hikes at Dishman Hills and along the river but no out of town jaunts. Instead I have been driving to Richland, Washington once a week to do some extra overtime work for my company. This is in part to get ahead on some bills and to pay for Walter's Christmas present...a new canoe.

When Walter was a wee lad I had a tandem kayak that had adjustable seats and was perfect for solo paddling with a dog on overnight trips. Alas, for some reason we sold it. My big giant tripping canoe, at 19 feet, is too large for me to paddle myself and Walter does not fit into my tripping kayak with me. The northwest is full of fantastic canoe tripping locations. Since I have decided that I am no longer such a fan of backpacking, this is a great way of getting out on our own while being able to lug a bit more comfort with us (the real reason backpacking has fallen out of favor with me...I like chairs, thicker sleeping mats, and extra tarps for getting out of the rain). The canoe is currently on order and layaway at Mountain Gear and will be here sometime in February. I am splurging on the lighter composit model and ours will be an ivory color to hide the scratches.

On a related note, Walter has been having some emotional issues of late. I have had him since before he was born. He was crate trained from birth. All I had to do was point to his crate and he would get in it. Over the past few months, he has developed some anxiety about his crate. He runs and hides, even jumping over the gate on the staircase and over the furniture. Once in his crate he shakes and slobbers and is a general mess. He must be in a crate because he gets into things (one time he ate a pillow). The only thing different is that Bubble is here now but this started before she came along and has been getting progressively worse. I have tried everything I can think of from different blankets to keeping any other dogs out, making sure the crate was light so he could see in it better, moving it to a different spot. For one week he ate in the crate at meals and went in willingly but that changed as well. So Walter went to the vet the other day and we are trying some anti-anxiety meds. Something must have happened when he was in the crate and now he associates it with that. The hope is to lower his anxiety enough to re-establish a new association. He has always gotten a cookie when he gets in and now he will not eat them when he is in there. It is so weird. Perhaps I have given him some sort of Mama's boy complex or something. We are doing a one month trial with the drugs as well as trying some retraining so we shall see.

The snow has been dumping in the mountains the past week so skiing and snowshoeing will be happening soon. I pulled Walter's snowsuit out of a bag this morning and his little nub tail started wagging energetically. He has not even seen it for two years! Crazy dog.