Two Winnie adventures

Winnie had two big adventures this year at the cabin. The first happened just as we were getting ready to leave on our camping trip. Before we could leave, Chris needed to dump out the guts from the lake trout that his uncle had caught the day before. He got in the canoe with this drippy bag of guts and started paddling out to the middle of the lake. Winnie, wearing her lifejacket, watched him from the dock and got more and more anxious the farther away he paddled. She started whimpering and carrying on, until finally she half-fell, half-leapt off the dock and started doggy-paddling her way out to the canoe! So now Chris had to handle a drippy bag of guts, a paddle, and a corgi who really wanted to get in the boat. He made it back to the dock with only a little bit of fish smell in the canoe, all the water dragged in by hauling in a wet corgi, and a very pleased Winnie. That's the story behind the picture of "Winnie's big rescue" in the slide show.

Her other big adventure was a visit to the neighbors' cabin- by herself. Winnie met the Alexanders' and their 17 year old dog Moose last summer, and we had a huge dinner of Swedish meatballs at their cabin this year just before we left on our camping trip. Sometime a couple of days after we got back from camping, we learned that Winnie walked herself over to the Alexanders' to say hi to Moose! Apparently Moose's mom was looking out of the second floor of their cabin and noticed Winnie sniffing around their driveway. She watched as Winnie trotted up to their cabin door and nosed at the screen. She let Winnie in, and Win walked into the bedroom to wake up Moose. They touched noses and said hi, and Winnie went back to the screen door to ask to be let out again. She trotted down the driveway, then turned down the path back to the Schommer cabin and walked herself home.

Meanwhile, we had no idea that she'd even left. Shows how observant we are! It's nice to know we have a neighborly dog.