More Sheep!

Wednesday the whole family went on a hike in Valley of Fire state park.  The first half of the hike was really great- second half not so much.  Since I am in a good mood lets start with the first half.

For starters we saw another big horn sheep.  Unlike the last sheep we saw this one was just standing on the side of the road looking skinny.  It was a little sad looking but still cool.

After stopping to photograph the sheep we headed out on our hike.  The first half was really beautiful.

Here's Copley and Ben starting down the wash.

It is a little difficult to see in the picture (you should click to enlarge it) but this whole rock is full of quartz.  Or at least we think it is quartz- no one here is a geologist.  For a while every rock we passed was like this and there were even rocks coming out of the ground with these crystals in it.  Very cool.

We stopped for a rest and a snack.  Kerri actually did amazing on this hike.  I was prepared with her little dog backpack so that I could hold her once she got tired.  The little lady made it about two and a half miles before she started getting tired and crazy.  The rest of the hike she was happy to be held.

The goal of this hike was a spring.  It was really cool and there even was flowing water and reeds.

Another cool thing is that the whole way down the wash to the spring there were lots of bighorn sheep tracks.  They obviously also use the wash to get to this water source.

I also have to share this picture of the slot canyon it was really cool.

Then we headed off on the second half of this hike.  This was a follow the GPS, the washes and your map sort of hike so the second half was just through the desert.  This dosnt look half bad- right?

Well it was a little tougher going than I thought and we were trying to make it back to the car in time to get Kerri to puppy agility class (we eventually gave up on that).  Copley started limping and then eventually stopped walking so he had to be carried the last mile or so.  There were lots more little hills and dips than anyone expected so the going was tougher than we thought.  Overall it would not have been so bad if Copley was ok and we didn't have a time crunch.  Anyway I don't have any pictures of the second half of this hike until this one-

This is me and the dogs waiting at a pull-off while Ben walked the rest of the way to the car because Copley still could not walk more than a couple of feet.  

About two weeks ago Copley got a little less interested in his runs but we figured it was just him being tired from playing with the puppy more.  Then on Tuesday he was a total nut at agility class- refusing a lot of obstacles and running off to say hi to people instead.  It was a new instructor for this session and she just kept telling me how much better my recall needed to be, how maybe we should take an obedience class etc...  I know that we have really good recall and that this was out of the ordinary.  He had never refused a jump before so I knew something was up but hadn't really figured it out.  Now I see that the poor guy is having some sort of issue with his back left leg, it explains everything that has been going on.  We go to the vet Monday, so lets hope for something that is an easy fix.  He is walking and playing and acting fine today so I hope it is not too serious.