Happy Birthday, Tomokee!

Tomokee recently celebrated his sixth birthday. He still zooms around like a crazed puppy at least once a day.

Now who could have done this?

Carmel

We went to Carmel-by-the-Sea last weekend and a visit to Carmel always involves a visit to the beach with Tomookee. It was overcast for 2 days, but by Monday morning, the weather was gorgeous.

A sand castle contest was held the day before, and quite a few of the sand sculptures survived the overnight tides. Here's a lovely "castle" that looks like a roast pig.


Next, we have a hammerhead shark.


This one is difficult to see, but it is Neptune, and the other dog is Breezy, Tomokee's running buddy on the beach that morning.

I really like this one. It's a squid, and seaweed is used as the tentacles - very clever!

Here's a turtle, and I believe we can see Breezy again.


This photo is not from the beach. Tomokee is standing in front of one of the shop windows. We were tempted, but did not ask about the "personalized pet perfumes".

Sunny day in the Sunset

Summer in San Francisco can be pretty darn cold. This is especially true in the Sunset district.
Some of the best weather comes in September and October, and last weekend was the first beautiful sunny day in a while. This view is from the Sunset Reservoir, and you can see the Golden Gate Bridge out in the distance. On days like that, walking the dog is a glorious activity.

Alston Park, Napa

Our recent summer road trip included Napa, CA, in addition to the Truckee and Lake Tahoe area. In Napa, Tomokee enjoyed his hike in Alston Park. This park is surrounded by vineyards on three sides. It doesn't have any shade, so it can get very hot in the summer months. We went fairly early in the morning to avoid the heat. It's very popular with the local dog owners so Tomokee got to say hello to some fellow four-legs.

Truckee, CA

We took a short road-trip vacay last week, and the first destination was Truckee in the Lake Tahoe area. On our first day, Tomokee enjoyed a hike around Donner Lake.

We stayed in the pet-friendly Cedar House Sport Hotel in Truckee, and they provided a nice doggy bed as well as a welcoming bag of treats.

The next day, we hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in the Castle Peak area. There was still some snow on the ground, and Tomokee did his "hound-bounding" on some of the snowy paths.

We got as far as Castle Peak.

We also walked along the banks of the Truckee River.

One of Tomokee's favorite places in Truckee is the Scraps Dog Bakery, but we got there too late the first day.

He was quite happy the next day when they were open.

Gopher

Golden Gate Park in San Francisco has lots of gophers. We can usually see their holes here and there, but it's rare that we actually see one hanging around outside of its hole. Tomokee didn't attack it -- he stared at it in a frozen state just like he does while staring at cats. We think he gets confused by life forms that he's unfamiliar with.

Here's a close up of the little guy. I think he (or she) is cute.

Ocean beach

San Francisco's Ocean Beach was amazingly pretty last Sunday. The skies were blue and the weather was very warm. Tomokee greatly enjoyed his stroll on the sand.

Adoptiversary

This weekend was Tomokee's adoptiversary. Tomokee, we've put up with you for five years now!

Tick removal, the twist method

Recently, we found a couple of ticks on Tomokee, probably the result of a hike in Windy Hill Open Space Preserve. The first tick was a little stubborn but did come out after some tenacious pulling. I decided it was time to search da web for other solutions after struggling a lot more and not having good success removing the second tick. The two pointers that were the most useful were this link and this link.

This first link talks about rubbing the tick in a circular fashion, and the second link mentions twisting the tick as one of the suggested methods. I tried rubbing the tick in a circular fashion for a couple of minutes, but didn't have any success. I waited a bit, then just held the tick's body and gave it a half-turn twist, let go, held it again, gave it another twist, and just repeated this for a minute or so. I was amazed when the tick just let go. Apparently, by doing this, the tick eventually gets tired of trying to hang on and gives up. Patience is the key because it can take a couple of minutes or more, but doing it did not bother Tomokee at all.

I wish we could have video-taped it, especially the part when I kept yelling "eeek! -- it's going to jump onto me!" after the tick landed on floor.

Sleeping posture

Tomokee has some strange sleeping postures, but this one takes the cake.

Golden Gate Park

We were walking through San Francisco's Golden Gate Park recently in early spring and came upon this tree with a mass of birds all parked on the branches on one side. I don't think Tomokee noticed.

Christmas must be finally over

It's never too late to get rid of that Christmas tree. We spotted this on a S.F. street corner recently.

Dog as squid

Tomokee has some strange sleeping/lounging postures. Here he is with all his legs poking out front. We're not sure how he does that.