My life continues to knock me down. First sidelined by having to put old Stitch down. Even when you’re expecting it, it hurts. Then my dad had a little heart episode. I’ve had enough adventure for this year, thanks.
Alright. Let’s get on with it.
We started today by going for a run. He and Stitch were good about staying close to the Gator. Much easier for me to keep an eye on them when I don’t have to keep looking back to watch Stitch toddle along. At the dugout, once again he waded in but couldn’t quite manage to launch into swimming. If the weather’s good we’ll go to the lake this weekend where I can wade in ahead of him and help him learn. In the meantime, we have to get back to working on retrieving. He’s great at chasing, picking up, carrying – until he notices something else, whereupon he drops the bumper in the mud and goes haring off in another direction. Then when I ask Syn to get the muddy bumper, he goes to take it from her, realizes his mistake, and then goes after her tail, with Really Bad Results.
Then we did some nosework (trial coming up in 3 weeks). Syn was great, Serra… decided that I was going to pay for indicating rather than all that “finding” nonsense, so three of his four searches ended up with me leading him to the source. The fourth one was perfect with a good search and a solid indication with super duration. I need to back up a bit, I’m working him above his ability.
And finally, we have (had) a Dutch door between the kitchen and the front hall. Last night friends came over and he hit the door in full tackle mode with both front paws. Popped it right out of the wall and broke it into pieces. Ron went back and forth all day today between calling him Bonehead and Destroyer Of Worlds. I actually think it might be a good thing because the first thing we do when somebody’s coming over is lock the dogs up – which isn’t teaching him anything useful at all.
Dog person came over this evening and I got both of the dogs to sit in the kitchen looking wistfully into the front hall while we talked. Only had to shut the door in guest’s face four times before he decided I was serious and decided to stay in the kitchen. I must say Syn wasn’t a lot better than Serra was. So there’s another thing we’ll be working on over the next few days, along with the whole idea that every single shoe, piece of clothing, and roll of toilet paper does NOT have to end up in the dog yard. Fortunately so far he shreds the tp but only relocates the shoes. It’s nice to have a plan.