July 21, 2012 - 101 Ways to Exhaust Your Pup
Birthday Party
This weekend, my friend Rebekah celebrated her 25th birthday. Emphasis on the word celebrated, her actual birthday was almost two weeks before. But here's the thing about being grown up. You can part whenever you want to! :) So my sisters, and a couple of other friends (and David obviously since I'm posting it to this blog) piled in the car and drove to Chattanooga TN for the day.
While I was confident David would do great, I wasn't sure how long he'd last in "working" mode all day. He did reasonably well, waiting for our table (45 minutes) staying quiet in a very noisy restaurant, riding elevators, walking six flights of steps, riding the shuttle, walking through downtown, eating ice cream and meeting a girl who had raised for GDF when she lived in New York!
By the time we decided to walk to the bridge David was on his last "good behavior" legs. It lasted until parts of our group got separated, and his collie instincts took over. He really hates to be left behind/separated, and proceeded to drag me towards where our group had headed. Teaching him to "find" people will be quite easy! However I wasn't down with the dragging aspect, I don't care if you're out of coat or not! So while the rest of our group took pics of the sights, David and I worked on being excited yet staying calm.
We have a ways to go. However, he was so intent on getting back to our group, he completely ignored the horse and carriage, and dalmatian standing a mere six feet away from us. After we returned to our car, we stopped at a bookstore, and a couple of Targets (we were looking for something specific). At the bookstore, he was definitely over the "be good stage" so we took sometime and redirected his "I-want-to-play-tug-with-your-skirt" into a impromptu obedience session. [Why didn't I think of this with Rob?]
Once we'd calmed down a bit more, we were able to proceed, though we did have to have a couple of other "Come to Jesus" meetings before he got the message and laid down.
He did fine during Target, but was more than happy to relax (sort of) once we got in the car. :)
One of the things that I do like about the collies is there stamina, my labs would have been dragging very quickly into the day (with the exception of Rob and maybe Rei) but David kept trucking along! :)
David crashed pretty soon after we got home. Needless to say. :)
Next Up? Puppy Meeting/Puppy Sitting.
Whew!
This weekend, my friend Rebekah celebrated her 25th birthday. Emphasis on the word celebrated, her actual birthday was almost two weeks before. But here's the thing about being grown up. You can part whenever you want to! :) So my sisters, and a couple of other friends (and David obviously since I'm posting it to this blog) piled in the car and drove to Chattanooga TN for the day.
While I was confident David would do great, I wasn't sure how long he'd last in "working" mode all day. He did reasonably well, waiting for our table (45 minutes) staying quiet in a very noisy restaurant, riding elevators, walking six flights of steps, riding the shuttle, walking through downtown, eating ice cream and meeting a girl who had raised for GDF when she lived in New York!
By the time we decided to walk to the bridge David was on his last "good behavior" legs. It lasted until parts of our group got separated, and his collie instincts took over. He really hates to be left behind/separated, and proceeded to drag me towards where our group had headed. Teaching him to "find" people will be quite easy! However I wasn't down with the dragging aspect, I don't care if you're out of coat or not! So while the rest of our group took pics of the sights, David and I worked on being excited yet staying calm.
We have a ways to go. However, he was so intent on getting back to our group, he completely ignored the horse and carriage, and dalmatian standing a mere six feet away from us. After we returned to our car, we stopped at a bookstore, and a couple of Targets (we were looking for something specific). At the bookstore, he was definitely over the "be good stage" so we took sometime and redirected his "I-want-to-play-tug-with-your-skirt" into a impromptu obedience session. [Why didn't I think of this with Rob?]
Once we'd calmed down a bit more, we were able to proceed, though we did have to have a couple of other "Come to Jesus" meetings before he got the message and laid down.
He did fine during Target, but was more than happy to relax (sort of) once we got in the car. :)
One of the things that I do like about the collies is there stamina, my labs would have been dragging very quickly into the day (with the exception of Rob and maybe Rei) but David kept trucking along! :)
David crashed pretty soon after we got home. Needless to say. :)
Next Up? Puppy Meeting/Puppy Sitting.
Whew!
Comments
He sounds like he's doing a great job (and you are too)!