I just wanted to share some good pictures I got while out hiking the other day. This was actually Copley's first hike since being on limited activity to treat his "mystery illness." He seems to have totally recovered from whatever injury/illness it was and had a great time- although it was not too long of a walk anyway.



^^^ We actually never hike off leash because my husband gets nervous about it, but this part of the trail was really rocky and he was better off navigating it by himself. Plus I have great control of him and there is no leash law on BLM land.





^^ Here we were trying to set up a bit of a Lion King/pride rock sort of image but Copley was not into posing like a majestic beast.

I hope we get lots more nice days like this before it gets too hot to go outside!

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Holy poop!!! I am so jealous!!! This is beautiful!!! Wow!!!
What a fun place to hike! What a view! Oh my gosh you are lucky!
So glad Copley is feeling better and is out having fun with you.
Love the Lion King shot! Frame it!

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We are so lucky! When I tell people I live in las vegas they all seem to think I live in the shadow of the Bellagio- but really we have all this beautiful wilderness! And it is so close. This was just a short hike before my husband had to get to work at 3.

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This is probably a stupid question, but... Are there any creepy crawlers that you have to watch out for? Any dangers for Copley?

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I worry most about burrows oddly enough. He has a bit of an issue with hoofed animals and behaves a little erratically around them. Getting kicked could be very bad. We also have rattlesnakes. This time of year and on this particular hike it is too cold for them, but we do look out. It is one of the reasons we keep both dogs leashed. The snakes are not looking for trouble so as long as you look ahead on the trail and don't let the dogs root around under rocks where they might be hiding it is not a big worry, just something to watch out for. We are prepared and our vet carries anti-venom (not all do because it is expensive and it expires). We have never considered the rattlesnake vaccine for a variety of reasons- but the big one is that it does not protect against the kind of rattlesnake that lives here. My vet even was surprised by that until I told him to read the fine print on the vaccine label! With all that said I have only ever seen one rattlesnake in 3 years of living here and it was not even way out in the woods, we were maybe 100ft from the car.

Black widows would probably be a worry for our Chi- but it really depends on her level of reaction to a bite. Copley is really too large and fit to be effected unless he has a specific allergy to the venom. On top of that black widows are extremely unlikely to bite even a human and have trouble breaking the skin, I don't really worry about them getting through fur. Every one of those I have seen since moving here has been in the garage of our own home- so really it is not a wilderness issue!

Lastly we have scorpions. Like the spiders they would only be deadly to a tiny dog who had a bad reaction. I do carry liquid benadryl at all times so if something did happen I could buy us some time to get to the vet.

Overall I am happy with our critter situation around here. I was raised in Florida where we had hundreds of venomous things- plus gators to worry about!

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Those pictures are amazing! Looks like had an awesome time! That's a great idea carrying benadryl. I'm a little cautious about bringing ours on her first "hike", because like you we have black widows and rattlesnakes. The black widows mainly hide on the side of houses though, so I think we're all good.

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that is just lovely!
scorpions?! *faints* those things are scary
i saw this youtube clip of this asian lady eatin them

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Absolutely fantastic beautiful pics!!! I love to see people getting out with their dogs and letting them be dogs and enjoy the outdoors.

Is that a special harness he has on?

Great pictures.

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"Having heard all of this, you may choose to look the other way.....
but you can never say again that you did not know." William Wilberforce 1759-1833