And weighing in at...

... all of 12kg on the dot (26.4lb). Just finished Haru's weekly weigh in.

Her weight gain/growth has slowed considerably the past couple weeks. She's hasn't been eating very much for the last few days, not sure if it's because of the growth slow down or the incredibly muggy heat we've had recently. She's looking a little on the thin side.

We took that trip to the beach yesterday. Haru spent pretty much all of it under the car in a nice cool spot she dug out for herself in the sand. We did take her down to the water a couple times to cool off though. She likes water, but only so long as her feet are touching the bottom.

Being the only guy around I naturally ended up with the task of setting up camp and getting the BBQ going. Everything went pretty well yesterday (though I underestimated the sun and have come out looking like a lobster). We ended up with great weather, fun BBQ, a bit of fishing, and a beautiful sunset.

Took the long route home through the middle of the Boso Peninsula to show the wife the local wildlife. I've tried taking her on a few runs through the mountains, but she usually falls asleep or is not looking when I spot stuff. Last night we had some amazing luck, and came across a family of pigs crossing the road, an owl, an anaguma (Japanese badger), and a few other URO's (unidentified running objects). The wife loved the piglets and attempted to whip out the video cam but unfortunately it doesn't run well in the dark. The rest of the group had already crossed the road, but the little ones were having a conference deciding the best way to jump over the drainage ditch. They were all huddled together and we watched them for a while till one of them summoned the boar in him and jumped. Of course all the rest followed. Wifey thought the piglets were the cutest little things.

Our one mishap of the day happened while we were fishing, and it was nearly a disaster. After I had set up the line at a scenic spot we found just past a fishing harbor, I strolled over to a concrete jetty separating open ocean from the beach. It was lined with 'tetra pods' (wave breakers), and there were some pretty big waves rolling in here and there. The big boys would roll in and hit the breakers and splash up over the jetty.

Well Haru was off leash, and followed me. I saw a big wave coming so started strolling back before I got splashed. Wave came up on the breakers, startled Haru and next thing I knew she was in midair jumping off the other side of the jetty toward the beach. It was the funniest thing at first, as she's never actually swum before, and she looked like a little kid who's father just threw them into the deep end. She was swimming around for a bit, and was getting the hang of it, so I called her over to a spot she could climb up a wave breaker and back onto the jetty.

She was just getting to the breaker when sheer terror wiped the grin off my face. A wave rolled in and the ensuing water level drop and undertow pulled her under the breaker. The next wave brought the level back up, and she was gone. There were a few moments where I seriously feared the worst. I was walking on the breakers trying to find where she'd been washed into while calling her (probably frantically, but you'd have to ask the wife. She heard me and came running). Just as the wife got to me, I found Haru right under the tetra pod I was originally trying to get here to climb up. The pods are stacked on top of each other, and she was poking her head out of a spot that seemed not quite big enough to get through.

I got the leash on her and tried to figure out if I was going to have to get in the water and swim up under the pod to pull her out. It's never a good idea to swim near breakers, for obvious reasons. While in this precarious position a few big waves rolled in over the jetty, and we all got thoroughly drenched. As luck would have it the last one brought the water level pretty high, and Haru got a good chunk of her body through the crevice. With a little pulling and coaxing, I managed to get her out.

Crisis over. After the initial feeling of relief, I started thinking. Chances are I might have been able to prevent this if she was on leash. On second thought, I can imagine all sorts of bad scenarios with her lunging off the pier and me getting dragged off onto the breakers. Still, I've had a couple situations recently when she was off leash. For the record, when she's out of the house with us, she's on leash 90% of the time. The times she's off are when she's in the mountains, and occassionally when I walk her round the back of the apartment to her toilet. When we're in secluded spots (like yesterday) I'll let her off for a little bit to stretch her legs, then it's back on leash.

Well after mulling over the days events I will definitely try and be just that much careful about when I let her off, but I've also realized I can't protect her from everything. I forsee that hunting together we will have our share of hairy experiences, it comes with the territory. I'm just going to have to try to minimize risk where I can.

Hmmm another wall of text blog post. Am in the process of uploading video from today, so will post it later.