A.J. continues to amaze me.

I’ve mentioned before that he has climbed trees. The trees that he’s climbed don’t have trunks that stand straight up, they’re at an angle of around 35 or 40 degrees (90 degrees being a perfectly straight tree). I’ve been saying he climbs trees, but really he’s just been running up into the trees. Today, however, A.J. climbed a tree.

He was running in the park sniffing around like he always does. He was off leash, so I was watching him carefully. Suddenly a squirrel darted across the lawn and A.J. went racing after it. The squirrel ran up into a tree. This tree was a little slanted, but it was still at about a 70 degree angle. That’s pretty close to being a straight tree. A.J. got to the tree running full speed and leaped right up. He ran up more than 10 feet before it got too steep and he lost momentum. At that point he stopped, looked up in the branches trying to find the squirrel, then managed to turn around and come right back down.

I was stunned. I saw him fly up into the tree and I was saying “OH MY GOSH! LOOK AT HIM!” and trying to get my phone out of my pocket. Unfortunately he came down before I could get the camera turned on. But here’s a picture of the tree. It would be a much cooler picture if there was a dog in it.

When he got down he came running right over to me, happy as can be. It looked like he was running to me saying “Did you see what I did!?”

Yes I did, you amazing boy.