Traveling The World with my humans

Today it snowed for the first time. I love snow and haven't seen any for more than 2 years now. Snow is fun, you can rund around and eat it while you are running. It's cold though but that's ok if you can rest in a warm house afterwards. My humans lit a fire in the paddle room and after running in the snow I could rest on the couch and dry my fur. I get so excited when I see snow. My humans told me there will be a lot of snow here. Great - I love this! They also said it will get very cold here. I do have pretty thick fur, I think I will be alright with that. My poor humans, they don't have fur and as far as I know they don't have thick winter coats. They better get one for themselves soon. Snow also means that we can't go on the canoe any more. Too bad, I really enjoyed the canoe rides. There are a lot of trees on Tim's property. There's white pine, white cedar, birch, aspen, tamarack and much more. Tim told us that he helped building a birch bark

The bear is still around here, my mistress found footprints in front of the camper again. My humans said they would like to see the bear from the distance but it keeps hiding. I am not sure if I would like to meet him. By smelling his poop I can tell he is quite big and wild. I’d rather not meet him and so I mark my territory even more than before. Maybe that keeps the bear away. I wonder where he lives anyway. Do bears live in a house or in a cave? What do they eat? My mistress did a little research for this. Black bears eat mostly vegetables, berries, nuts and roots. They also eat ants, bees and sometimes moose calves. Chipmunks, squirrels and groundhogs belong to their menu too. They sleep in caves, earth pits or hollow tree trunks. Did you know a male black bear weighs between 50 and 400 kg? Their biggest enemies beside the humans are Grizzlies, coyotes, wolves and cougars. The leaves are falling and the bush is starting to clear up. Now I can run in the bush and experience

This morning when we came to Tim’s house the garbage can was flipped over again and it looked like the bear was there. I even could smell him. My mistress saw a footprint in front of our camper too but wasn’t sure if it is an old or a new one. How exciting, maybe I can meet him this time and ask him to play. My mistress told me that I need to be careful, as the bear is a wild animal and would probably be dangerous for me. Tim told my humans that the bear was there during the night and scared him away. I wish I could have been there! Later my mistress went on a walk on the property with me and we found his footprints just a couple of meters from the camper. Tim said the bear is about three years old and big. The smell of the bear is very strong and there were many footprints. See for yourself on the pictures below. Later today my humans decided to go on a canoe ride. Yes, I love canoe rides. I was so excited and could hardly wait until they crapped their gear and were ready to go

Last night the coyotes have been near the camper. I woke up because they were so loud. Even my mistress woke up. The pack was chasing something and it sounded like they were circling around the camper but I couldn’t see anything. My mistress tried to see them but she couldn’t either. There must have been about 15-20 coyotes in the pack. I don’t like this noise; it’s very loud and high voices. Tim told my mistress that I have to be careful with the coyotes. They would hide in the bush and one of them would come out and try to convince me to follow. In the bushes the pack would try to kill me. I heard it when he told my mistress. I am not that stupid to follow a coyote in the bushes - am I? I don’t think so but who knows. I’ll better be careful when I see them. Until now I only heard them and smelled them.

Today was an exiting day again. A couple of students from Collège Boréal in Timmins and two teachers here and went canoeing with Tim. He told them some things about the voyageurs and the First Nation People. Marc, Holly, Mikalin and Diesel were here too. Us dogs had to stay away from the students but I was able to escape while they opened the door to Tim’s house. Because I know how to behave I was allowed to stay while my humans made a balloon workshop with the students. That was fun. I really like meeting new people and say hello to everybody. Everybody smells differently and the smell tells me stories about him or her. About 10% of my brain is for my smell, for humans this is about 1% of their brain. A dog of my size has approximately 200 billion smell cells. Isn’t that amazing? After the students left, the others left too and it got quiet again.

This morning I felt a little better. My mistress put that essential oil on my belly again and I think this helps. When we went out of the camper my humans found footprints of the bear in front of the camper. He must have walked by during the night. I did not hear him although I am a dog and I am supposed to take care of my humans. That must be because I was sick, otherwise I would probably have heard him. Later that day we found his poop. It smelled interesting to me but poop never smells good. My mistress and my master were careful when they went out during the night. They play music when they go out and carry a whistle. That’s good because there are no more wild animals out there – coyotes and wolves. Sometimes we hear them howling during the night and sometimes they are very close to the camper. A bear is different; he tries to come into the camper if he smells food.

This morning I did not feel good, I tried to pee but I couldn’t, it hurt so badly. I just could pee a couple of blood drops. My mistress felt that I don’t feel good and after a while she saw what was wrong. She kept me warm for the day and put some essential oil on my belly. I got thin black tea to drink and gave me food with a lot of water but I wasn’t hungry. I just wanted to sleep and rest. My humans are worried it might get worse. They took care I am warm for the night and I was fine that night.