Life on the Leash

… from Joe Six-Pack!

During Q&A at our first lesson I asked Zoey’s people what she already knew how to do.

Uh, everything?

Zoey’s people ran through her list of accomplishments and I interrupted them when they got to “she holds a stay while we go upstairs” and asked, “Why am I here?” (It didn’t sound as wise-assy in person, I promise.)

Turns out Zoey needs to polish up her leash walking and outdoor recalls skills, so we’re going to have some fun taking field trips and working in the open field next to their place.

The first lesson was a cakewalk for her, as was the modeling. She did get a bit … vocal … towards the end:

“Gimme!”

“Treat!”

I was back at Lola’s house last week to help address some typical adolescent lab silliness.

Hasn’t she grown into a lovely dog? Even better, her temperament is fantastic. I was really impressed with the changes in her over the past few months.

We had a fun, easy session, then we went out back to play with big sis Cassie.

Cassie is all about sticks. Big sticks.

Lola is also interested in sticks, but only the ones that Cassie has.

Cassie tolerates Lola’s attempted thievery to a point, then she tells Lola, “Back off!”

“Kids these days …”

On Sunday we took a walk down to the garden with Sum, picked the last of the zinnias and mused about what Zeke would be doing on such a beautiful day (lounging in the sun, chasing squirrels, and finally, as the air became cooler, finding his post in front of the heating vent).

After some quiet reflection and not a few tears, we placed him in his beautiful handmade urn.

We miss him every day.

I worked with Cody a while back to help him learn to be more neighborly with the dogs in his ‘hood … we had a pressing reason for the etiquette lesson: Cody was getting ready to move to England!

Cody had quite an adventure making his way to his new home … rather than sticking him in a crate in the cargo hold of an airplane for umpteen hours, his people decided to book him a ticket on the QM2!

Now that’s travelling in style!

(I love how the bulldog is catching some rays!)

You’d never guess it from looking at these contemplative poses …

… but Blackberry is a crazy, high energy, driving-her-people-bonkers puppy. She’s not unusual, though. Her activity level is on par with most of the young labs I meet. Her people have good humor about Blackberry’s nuttiness, particularly Blackberry’s 5 year old person, Bailey, who copes with her dog’s nipping and jumping with aplomb. Bailey has a well-rehearsed set of behaviors and body positions she uses as preemptive strikes when Blackberry is tearing towards her. No matter how hard the jump or how pinch-y the nip, Bailey just rolls with it. Absolutely awesome.

Bailey loved training, (actually, her quote was “I love my clicker”), and I loved seeing how adept she was with it.

Blackberry was all, “Huh? I have to listen to the little one too?”