Mountains

So I took Haru south today, to the area where I do most of my hunting. It was a beautiful sunny day with a cool breeze.

I wasn't sure how Haru would react to the great outdoors, was worried she might just hightail it back to the car. My fears were unfounded. Thousands of years of instincts kicked in, and she was happily romping through the spring greenery, sniffing everything, tasting a lot of things, and chasing every butterfly that flew by.

She actually surprised me by how much stamina and athleticism she already has. Around the house she still seems a little puppy clumsy, pretty much what you'd expect from a 3 month old. But today there were quite a few spots I was surprised she could climb. I thought I might need to carry her, but she just went bounding on up.

Now on the photo front, I did not fare so well. A couple months ago my cats tried to destroy my camera, and managed to damage the lens where it connects to the camera (that and I can now hear a frightening rattling sound when I shake my camera). Well the lens is loosening up even more now so that half the time I want to take a picture I get an error message saying I have no lens attached. Time to get it fixed. Anyway, I got a few pics at least.

We had a great time today tracking boar mostly. Haru got all excited scenting something, so I let her lead for awhile. Turns out she was on a boar trail which we ended up following for most of the day. Late in the afternoon we ran into an old gentleman looking for wild mountain vegetables who apparently owns most of the area I hunt in. He was only to happy to have someone keeping the boar in check, but unfortunately didn't want to pose for a picture.

The area I hunt in has a large cattle farm (ranch?), and they have a pack of dogs that live there off leash. I found this out the 'fun' way last hunting season when a pack of dogs came charging down a hill toward me. One of their dogs is a Lab mix, and he runs with the pack, but is the quintessential Lab. The other dogs are Nihonken mutts it looks like, and are pretty territorial/wary, but not vicious or dangerous I've found. Just do a lot of barking. The Lab is friendly as hell, and ended up hunting with me for most of the day. It was pretty hard to get him to stop following me.

Well today we were in the general area, and I figured we might run into the pack at some point. We eventually saw them as I was driving to a different spot to check on my pheasant spot. Haru started barking at them, so I pulled over to say hi. The more wary dogs stood back barking, but 3 of the braver pups including the Lab came over. Haru was not happy at first, and hightailed it back to the jeep, 3 is just too many. She was quite happy with the Lab, he's very well behaved, and pretty much doesn't care about other dogs and just loves on people.

All in all a grand day w/o any mishaps, and I am now downing a proper beer while trying to post. Hope everyone reading this had as wonderful a day!