Inuit Dog at the Mall of America

Ilu as a 6 month old pup, now nearly 2 years old.

You read it right. Last Saturday Ilu and I spent the day at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota. Neither of us is fond of malls or shopping but we did get a kick out of the people watching activity.

Points Unknown was asked to give a sled dog slide presentation and talk for the Ron Shara and Raven(the black lab) Minnesota Bound Experience at the Mall of America. Ron Shara and Raven are local celebrities that host a television show called Minnesota Bound that can be seen on Sunday evenings. We were in the company of the Bloomington K-9 bomb sniffing squad, the Minnesota Disc Dog Club, The Minnesota Raptor Center and Ron Shara and Raven herself.

Ilu, being still quite young and inexperienced with such extreme social outings, acted like a professional and was calm and collected the entire day. Those who have seen him during hook-up in front of a sled, know that he can be anything but calm and collected. This big, black, bear of a dog let toddlers crawl on him, teenagers kiss and squeeze him and everyone who offered a hand, pet him as he rolled on his back with legs in the air. His eyes were glued to the disc dogs as they were catching disc after disc being thrown by their humans to loud rock and roll music but he never made a sound or even attempted to go grab a disc for himself. Good dog, Ilu.

Mini Iris

The flowers are between the size of a quarter and a 50 cent piece.

While cleaning up around the dog yard over the weekend, I noticed that the mini Iris I planted over 5 years ago were in bloom and had the most flowers I've seen in those 5 years. The original two plants were brought back from the woods near a dog friendly cottage in Door County Wisconsin, on Lake Michigan, that I visited for many years. These wild mini Iris plants literally cover the forest floor in some spots.

Dogs at Play

Bazil, Sweet Pea and Tuloon in action.

Klaus' favorite backyard activity - eating dried crab apples.

Sweet Pea

Tuloon

Winter Came Back

Phoenix keeping a close eye on those playing below.

Amaruq stalks.

Isis emerging from the jungle of shrubs.

Zulu with his all time favorite toy.

Tukisi smiles for the camera.

Only days after my last post speaking of winter's end, it came back. The loons had just returned to scope out a nesting spot. There were two pairs on the lake just days before the cold snap began and then they seemed to disappear with our first signs of spring. It had been cloudy with a combination of snow and rain for days with temps in the teens at night and, sometimes, the 20s during the day. The cold stayed and finally the moisture retreated, allowing the ground to dry.

Yesterday was the first sunny day in awhile. Since it had been dry for a few days, the mud was gone from the larger fenced dog enclosure attached to the house so the dog "playground" was now three times its original size. They enjoyed being able to stretch their legs even more as we haven't been able to get out and run with the cart for a couple of weeks due to this musher's demanding spring schedule.