barking at the llamas

Riley has grown to be quite the experienced barker. She barks at Kona, and, as she stares out our front screen door, she beckons other dogs who happen to be strolling through our neighborhood. The only glitch in her expertise is that she also barks at every other animal on the face of this earth. Thus, when we made our way to Cosley Zoo yesterday, the pigs, the llamas, and even the ducks were greeted with her "Woof woof woof!" I do feel that I should add, though, that we've been working on the elephant noise (complete with trunk hand gesture), so when Cosley adds a 'phant to their farm animal collection-- well, watch out!

The Cosley animals, however, weren't our favorite creatures of the day yesterday. Early in the evening, we headed down to Naperville to meander around Ribfest. Would you believe it? In their family area, they had a free petting zoo! There were little tiny pigs, goats galore, and baby cow and even two little llamas (And aren't llamas supposed to be mean? That's what I had heard.). Riley was in seventh heaven. Kona's 80-lb. mass has obviously helped her adjust to mammals of all sizes because she was more than excited when the goats, thinking she had food, came up and nibbled at her little fingers. The cutest moment, in my opinion, was when she reached out her tiny index finger to stroke one of the little baby pigs. Ah... so cute. The least cutest moment-- leaving. She wasn't pleased. But really, when your 15-month-old refuses to walk, especially when she can be crawling with friendly (if not somewhat stinky) animals, you can only watch out for poop for so long. Even though the kid who was on poop duty was doing his job well, it's hard to keep up with a few dozen extremely well-fed animals.

All that said, I'm kind of hoping Lisle's "Eyes to the Skies" has a petting zoo. Fingers crossed!

Riley and her favorite toy, Kona