Ajax is the alpha

Ajax never plays with toys anymore, and Bo is never seen without a toy in her mouth. But, every so often, Ajax likes to aggravate Bo by grabbing one of her toys and prancing around with it. The other night he grabbed her turtle (which is the only toy in the house that still has any stuffing), and he ran under the bed and sat with it in his mouth. He didn't play with it, he just calmly sat still holding it for 20 minutes, driving her crazy.
The dogs have routine with their bones - I give them each a bone, they run around showing them off for a few minutes, and then the settle down to chew them. Bo quickly loses interest in her bone and wants Ajax's bone instead. So she will lay down right next to him and pout, waiting for a piece to come loose that she will then carry off to enjoy by herself.

Black Mountain, the other way up

I haven't been hiking in a long time, so I was excited when Rick asked me to hike Black Mountain with him and Danika after work on Monday. We parked in a neighborhood at the base of the mountain (around Horizon Ridge and Gibson) at 6pm and headed up. It was about 105-degrees, but the heat was surprisingly mild. I've never been up this side of Black Mountain, and I like this route much better because it is shorter and has some scrambling.
It took an hour to get to the top, and the view was amazing as always. The sunset was spectacular this night, and we spent about an hour chatting at the top.
We took the paved service road down the mountain because the rocks on the mountain were too unstable to traverse at night. Of course, I fell down a number of times on the loose gravel, and Rick managed to capture one of my clumsy moments on film. It took about an hour to get down for a round trip of 3 hours, the perfect after work hike.

Thank you to Rick for sharing these pictures. This is my first hike when I didn't bring a camera (shocking!), but I can always count on Rick to take some good action shots.