The New Year for the Little Dog has started about as well as any dog's year could begin - and I didn't make out so bad myself...we decided to follow the beautiful weather and use our long weekend to visit the balmy 70+ degree weather in LA and SoCal, and in the process, we hit 9 heavy-hitter dog parks (8 of which were new to us) in under 48 hours. At this rate, we will visit over 1600 dog parks this year!
Jealous?
In truth, I owed the little guy some nice weather. At Christmas, I made a (failed) attempt to fly to Chicago and drive back with a car my parents said I could use this spring. That was Boom's first exposure to snow and real cold, both of which were in great abundance. As you can see in the above video, the kid's first potty break in the snow resulted in his decision to keep holding it! That went on for quite awhile. Eventually, he learned to suck it up and navigate the snow, but the snow was taller than him, and the temps were in the teens - it was no small achievement.
It was our luck to see that SoCal was going to blessed with incredible weather on New Year's weekend, and since that part of our doggie book is the one we have done almost ZERO exploring in. I decided to rent a car and drive down so we could get our bones re-warmed, and get some of those table scraps out of the doggy's hide. When a doggie won't go out to pee, you can bet he wasn't going out for leisure walks. Mix in holiday cooking and Midwestern eats fed to a begging chi by his extended family (and me - shame!), and you have a plump little Chihuahua. Yes, we'd be recreating in the warm California sun and all, but I promised myself I would work the little guy good, and try to start the new decade with much exercise and no more people food for el perro. I am proud to report, I kept my word!
I have many problems with the SoCal lifestyle. It isn't just the nasty car culture, but it is their wholesale rape of the state to supply themselves with water - much of which they wantonly waste on their white trash concepts in landscaping, land use, and agriculture. As degenerate as SoCal is, one can't say their way of life would have no redeeming value were it not such a gluttonous disaster. Not only do I like the weather, but the weather is also awesome weather for doggies, and over time, SoCal has developed a nice little dog culture with many dog parks and their fair share of off-leash areas. While I knew we'd just catch a smattering of these places on our short visit, for the most part, we picked well, got some good tips, and the weather was every bit as good as the forecast suggested.
Day one, we hit 5 doggie hotspots. It dawned on me that we will likely not go to 1600 dog parks this year, but we will see plenty, and that it would be much fun to use my (awesome) new Flip camera to document at least an overview of each one. I won't put them all up here, but if you care, I will put them up on a YouTube page, so you can see what the dog runs/parks at Coldwater Canyon, North Hollywood (where the dog mural apartment is - very cool that the people living near all that barking are at least trying to enjoy it), El Capitan in Fresno, Long Beach Dog Park, Runyon Canyon, and Silverlake look like. Tomorrow I will have video up from Dog Beach in Huntington Beach as well as from the Dog Zone at Long Beach beach. As it turns out, we tried to find the dog park in Griffith Park, but failed. Not only that, the dog book says you can take your dog on the kiddie train ride in the park, so we totally went on a heat-seeking mission to get that done only to find they no longer allowed it. 100% bummer! As you can see in the video however, the chi was pretty happy to just be able to hang out the window and check out the doin's at Griffith Park (the zoo smell! the many doggies walkin! the concessions! horses! squirrels! no snow!)
It is tough to nail down a specific event from day one which Booms most loved. I personally found Runyon Canyon to be the best from a dog density and natural beauty angle. The little Butterball wasn't too happy about having to do so much uphill walking, especially since we did 2 hills (he made a commando raid on the bag containing the remnants of Tommy's Chili Cheese Fries from a pitstop made earlier, and so he had to be punished with much brisk uphill walking, otherwise I fear he would literally dispense grease when he lifts his leg.) I think we will be visiting Runyon Canyon every time we are in LA together, and I am not sure I can say the same of the other places we visited day one. Coldwater Canyon was pretty good for both people and dog watching, as was Silverlake (alt.dads, alt.moms, alt.babies, alt.dogs - awesome!) We have visited El Capitan in Fresno many times, and our visit was so early (on our drive down), no one else was there. The North Hollywood park was smallish, but the people were very very friendly and there were many many shrimps, especially of the Chihuahua variety, to hang with, so we will likely visit there often; but overall, Runyon Canyon probably gets the nod for top spot for the tot to trot, if only for the views from the many awesome overlooks.
In the little commercial district near the Silverlake park, we found a coffee shop that allows doggies out on their patio, but it was so full, we couldn't stay. Our loss!
We will be back methinks. Though Booms HATES being left outside when I go in somewhere, I was parched, and ended up getting a little iced coffee action (which I must say was among the best I have had in many moons - particularly for LA.) The kid made a huge scene out of me leaving him out on the sidewalk, making me look like a cross between Cruella DeVille and Simon LeGree with his hyper-chirping and squeaking. People looked at me as if I had done something horrible to my chi - I felt like screaming out to all the stinkeyes aimed at me out there that he had been to 4 other dog parks already that day, would go to 4 more tomorrow, and that basically the worst crisis in his life is when he has to entertain himself on very rare occasions like this where I leave him by himself for 5 minutes or less. I am not sure it would have done any good, especially for people who dress their children like extras in a low-rent early-80s Eastern European TV special on disco. I literally think I heard someone say their (male) child was named Phineas, and they are eyeballing me?!?
The kid had a pretty awesome day all-in-all. In truth, he really just loves driving around in the car. Having all the other dogs to visit with at the various parks is just gravy. In his case, the best was yet to come as it would be on day two that we hit the beaches, walked in Hollywood, and visited the very awesome dog park in Long Beach. Then there was day three, in which we went to the San Fran Chihuahua Meetup and visited our first Flyball Tournament.
More on that in the next update y'all.