silverlake dog park

We brought Stewie to his first LA dog park yesterday. The Silverlake dog park has two separate fenced areas--one for large dogs and one for small dogs. Both have water fountains and watering bowls for the pups, and chairs and benches and overhangs for shade for owners. We went on a Saturday afternoon so I expected the place to be packed, but it was actually manageable! That was the first weird (as in, different from NYC) thing I noticed about this dog park. But the weirdest thing of all was that when we entered the park with Stewie, there wasn't a deluge of dogs that tried to smell his butt he second he entered. All the dogs in the park were totally laid back and friendly and were busy relaxing or playing fetch with their owners. Which made me think--can one study a city's dog parks and extrapolate those observations to the surrounding city itself? Are LA dogs (people) more laid back, happy, and even tempered and NYC dogs (people) anxious, nervous, and starved for socialization?

Anyway, that dog park is fantastic. We also walked around the Silverlake reservoir and found a bunch of rosemary growing along the path:

But, most importantly, I achieved one of my lifelong dreams (seriously) while at the dog park. I saw a hummingbird in real life (in the 'wild')! I have never seen one before although I know a good amount about them. It was the tiniest thing, and did a lot of hovering. I was way too excited to see it and actually was able to catch a photo of it flying away from the fence it was sitting on (look at its blurry wings!):


I am really looking forward to seeing different flora/fauna here in California. Once my hiking book gets here we can start doing some trails...