Tess's birthday and a real Rio trail ride

My good dog Tess turned 7 years old today, so I did a little photo shoot in the fall leaves. She has this habit of looking at me with what I call the "up periscope" look, her nose up- really she's not in the least bit snooty!!!

She is the bestest dog....

She got to come with me today...

for Rio's first real trail ride, 2 hours through the woods near the airport.

My first Rio ear-cam shot!

Tess is so good, she just follows behind, doesn't go diving off the trail and running through the bush so she's a good one to take on a colt's first outing.

Shayla and her friend's dog Shilo came along too, her horse Allie is a 3 year old, and did a good job of being a nice steady horse for Rio to follow.

The fall colors were lovely even if it wasn't a sunny day, so I'll post those photos in tomorrow's Sunday Stills challenge, which is "Fall Colors". We did take posed photos of each other though, with the beautiful yellows as a backdrop.

I was very impressed with Rio, he did very well, looked sideways at a couple of things, but no issues. We went in the lead near the end of the ride, and he stopped when there was a log across the trail even though he had been across a few already following Allie this was the first one that he had to cross on his own, but he did go. 

A couple of good young horses! What a good day it was- good horses, good company and good dogs!