Lapham Peak

Keeley's grandma had a great idea this morning about going to Lapham Peak in the Kettle Moraine State Forest.We started out walking on the Ice Age Trail which follows the last glacier in Wisconsin.
Keeley loves walking on trails because he's very confident about leading us on the path.
After a while though, I decided that this trail was too hard for us. Keeley was doing his 3 leg hop favoring his bad leg and the very uneven walking surface, littered with rocks and tree roots was hard on Keeley's grandma because she suffered a very badly broken ankle a few years ago.
So we switched to the Kame Terrace Trail when we came to a fork in the road.
This trail was much easier on all of our paws.
It took us right through the Butterfly Garden.
We didn't see any butterflies but Keeley found some grasshoppers.
Can you see the grasshopper in the bottom left corner of this picture? I think Keeley really wants a pet of his own. He loved playing with this grasshopper and he was so gentle with it. Everytime we'd tell Keeley that it was time to go, he'd pick up the grasshopper in his mouth and bring it with him. He'd do it so gently that he didn't even break off any of the grasshopper's legs.
After the Butterfly Garden we ended up on this paved path that was just called the Accessible Trail. Now this was really easy walking!
I took this picture from the top of the Observation Tower. Keeley went up the first flight of stairs but then was too scared to go up any farther.

We all had a great time and Keeley got to meet a few dogs there too. We were so tired when we got home that we all took a nice long nap.

September Update

JEDI MIND TRICK
Lately Keeley has been doing this weird thing. He will sit right in front of me and stare into my eyes. I don't know what he's trying to do. Have a staring contest with me? Hypnotize me? Use doggie telepathy? I don't know! It's very strange and almost creepy sometimes. He looks mildly ticked off the whole time too. It last for about 5 minutes; then I guess he gives up or loses interest and walks away. What is he trying to tell me?

CONSTRUCTION OBSTRUCTION
The city has begun work replacing the Highland Bridge. It's in desperate need of repair but it sorta sucks because now Keeley and I can't walk our normal "Miller Loop". In addition, they've also re-routed all the buses that used to use the bridge. The problem with that is that Keeley is scared of buses. The buses are everywhere. They got routed right up our street even. I timed it and at least 12 buses now go past our house every hour. So Keeley has been doing a lot of barking lately. He'd better get used to it though since this construction is supposed to last a whole year!

CHECK IT OUT
Keeley is one of the featured pets up on www.sitstay.com right now. My boy is a star!

NO SISTER FOR KEELEY THIS YEAR
First Keeley was supposed to get a sister in spring of this year, but that turned out to be a false pregnancy. Then it was supposed to be in fall, but we just found out that the mating didn't take. Bummer, huh? I guess Keeley will have to wait till next year to finally get his long awaited sister.

SQ's
Keeley has been chasing squirrels like crazy lately. He's been coming pretty darn close to catching a few of them too. It got to the point where his grandma and I didn't want to even say that word around him because it would get him all worked up. His grandma invented a code word for squirrels and started calling them "SQ's" when she was talking to me. Unfortunately, I ruined it because I kept calling them SQ's in front of Keeley. Guess we have to come up with a new code word now.

Well, that's the update. Now all I have to do is catch up on blog reading!

Depression

Keeley is so depressed now that everything is over and everyone has gone back home and back to work. The Olympics are over. The DNC is over. The Doggie Dips are over. The Pawlimpics are over. Summer is over (No kidding, yesterday we had the air-conditioning on and today people are wearing jackets and the leaves are falling off the trees!). Keeley has got a case of the blues. He's just sitting in darkrooms alone and pouting. His grandma told me that he wimpered when I left to go back to work yesterday morning. And he's seriously missing his Unkie Rob, who has now returned to NYC. Poor Keeley. He's so sad.

Doggie Dip @ Cool Waters

Tonight was the Doggie Dip at Cool Waters in Greenfield Park. We told Keeley that he was going to go swimming. He looked really happy about that.When we got there we discovered that the line was even longer than last year! It was so crowded with dogs and their people.
Last year, I lost sight of Keeley for 3 minutes and I was in a total panic. So this year I had four sets of eyes watching him- me, his grandma, his grandpa, and his unkie Rob. However Keeley still managed to get out of sight but only for one minute this time.
Keeley has gotten so good at swimming and he bravely jumps into the water. Unfortunately, Keeley started this weird behavior of growling at other dogs as they were trying to get out of the pool. It was as if Keeley thought he owned the pool or something. I thought it was very strange because Keeley is usually so calm and friendly with other dogs.
Here's Unkie Rob getting a hug from a boxer baby. That's the kind of dog that he wants.
Keeley did really good swimming and had a great time. He was sad when it was time to go.