Enjoying Kodo's favorite park

Kodo is known to enjoy time out in the yard in spurts, but these days he seems to find a little more peace out there.  I think if it weren't for us, he'd be just fine being out there overnight.  Now granted, I wake up a few hours after Becky.  But as I walked downstairs in the morning, one of my favorite moments was seeing Becky sitting outside with the boo.  The weather was still a bit chilly in the morning so a jacket and blanket was a requirement for non-puppies.  K looked like he was enjoying as well.

I took a turn at morning duties with Kodo for a bit and as I've been known to do, took way too many photos.  Although his mobility is still limited, he does have mentally active mornings where he picks his head up, particularly for treats.  I'll be honest that it's a little hard to see him mentally active with the treat giving, only to have reality hit as soon as he needs to get up and walk around. :(  This morning, when he perked his head up, it allowed me to forget all my worries for a little bit and enjoy the moment for what it is and a reminder of all the love, joy and laughs he has given us all these years.

So our plan with Kodo today was to take advantage of the weather and take him out to the metroparks.  This is the park that Kodo grew up with where we have taken him on hikes ever since he was a pup.  I don't know how many nice days we'll have this week, or how K's hips will hold out, so we felt this would be our best chance.   On the way, we decided to stop off at McDonald's to treat him to a few hamburgers.  It was a little bit of a struggle to get K to the car.  His hips haven't been great the last few years, but these days he's especially nervous.  Once he's in the car, he's usually good to go.  I managed to capture a few photos of him with his bright starry eyes that he's had since he was a pup.

Sadly, the blog won't allow me to share the video of him with his mcD's due to the file limits.  But needless to say, his appetite wasn't an issue.

Once we got the to metroparks, we just let Kodo navigate where he wanted to walk.  We'd go at his pace and just let him guide the hike.  His first stop was straight to the Nature Center...most likely because he knows that he gets treats there.  As we walked in, he immediately went to the front desk and requested a biscuit:

Eventually we did actually leave the nature center and let Kodo lead us.  Instead of going to his normal rocks that he loves to sniff, he decided to be all energetic and take us to a back route.  The thing about K, is that he seems to think he has more energy than he does:

"I think we should go up"

Eventually reality does strike and he decides to stop when he needs the breaks.  This allows for some good photo opportunities:

He also got a chance to meet this little guy:

Eventually, he did get to a point where he had to make a number of stops to rest his hip.

The only way to truly get him moving again is to threaten him with a family photo, which if you can't tell from this photo, he is totally thrilled about:

He did begrudgingly smile for a selfie though, which capped off a good day at the park: