Day 51 - Amundson Park (swimming!)

Happy Memorial Day! I was beat this morning from our trial weekend, but 6:00 rolled around and Jedi was ready to go. We tried something new -- I got up to let the dogs outside, and then we went back to bed, but this time Jedi got to come up on the bed instead of going back into the crate. I'd call it a success because we got in another hour and a half of sleep before they started to move around. I didn't actually get out of bed until almost 8:30. I haven't decided when I'll start moving Jedi out of the crate at night (he likes his crate) -- but one thing I definitely noted was how much more crowded the bed is with all five dogs in it!

For breakfast this morning we went outside and did pivots to the leg. We continue to try to move off the target. I found I had better success if I moved completely away from the target, but Jedi is largely stuck to my left side at this time. He continues to offer backing in a circle around me. This morning he gave me four nice tight backwards circles! I'm not calling it anything, but I do click and reward when he does it.

I left the dogs for a bit this morning to go to a family thing. When I got home I was thinking a nap would be nice, but Jedi immediately went to the garage door and let me know that he wanted to play. Rather than just throw stuff for him, I decided to drag out a tunnel and the chute (yup, cheating for class tomorrow). This is the first time I've brought out either of these for Jedi at home.

I just set the tunnel in a straight line -- I'm not going to worry about adding curves until he figures out that the name of the game is to drive as fast as you can through the tunnel. I made sure to get entries from both sides and both ends. I also was able to chain in a send around the cone before the tunnel!

For the chute introduction I folded the fabric very short, but there was still enough of it that it was collapsed. I honestly thought that if I did a collar grab in front of the chute Jedi would just go through it. He started to, in that he entered the chute tunnel, but he stopped dead when he hit the fabric portion. Okay, I guess we do need to make it shorter. I folded it up even more so that you could see through the tunnel and then Jedi went through with no problems. As he went through it the fabric started to let out a bit so that he was eventually pushing through a little. Overall I think it was a great introduction to the obstacle. We'll see what they have in store for us in class tomorrow.

It was a hot day today and Jedi's tongue was hanging out pretty far after all of this tunnel fun, so I went ahead and filled up a pool for him. Secret was busy eating the tennis ball (....) so Jedi got all of the pool/hose fun to himself today (minus sharing it with Luke who just used it as his big water dish). When I first started filling the pool Jedi just went all frog-dog in the water and soaked it in. Once he had cooled off a bit he was back to playing with the hose.

I tweaked my back a bit (or rather, I think all of my sore muscles from the weekend just seized up on me) during play time, so we went back inside and took it easy the rest of the afternoon. The dogs were happy to hang out in the house and relax in front of the fan. Sometime after 3:00 I realized that I forgot to give Jedi his lunch again. He can probably go down to two meals a day any time here, but I had 16 weeks in my head so we'll see. Jedi got a late lunch that was pretty much just doing the pee trick against the window benches in the house.

For our outing of the day I decided to keep it local -- We've done enough driving lately! Since Secret was left home all weekend, obviously she won the outing lottery today. And finally, since we had Secret along and it was hot out, today was the perfect day to go swimming! Amundson Park is within walking distance (less than a mile) from home, so I threw a couple of bumpers into Jedi's backpack and off we went.

We had an uneventful walk over to the park. There were several vehicles parked down in the park, but there were no people around the playground equipment so we went over to check that out first. Jedi went down the little slide on his own several times!

As we made our way down to the river we saw a couple of people pulling canoes out of the river, and then we ran into a family playing frisbee golf (Jedi noticed the frisbees more than the people). As we approached the little beach at the end of the trail I saw a dog up at the corner. I opted to assume it was under control and continued forward, and we soon learned that the dog (a Shar Pei) was on leash, but the leash (flexi) was being dragged. I had to call out several times before one of the owners came running to attempt to retrieve the dog (who, upon seeing the owner, proceeded past us to try to avoid getting caught).

It was hot and the dogs wanted to play, so we continued to the sandy area. I hooked the long line onto Jedi for safety and as soon as he was released he went plunging into the river towards the two people in the water. And with that he continued to be a little fish the entire time we were there. Apparently the water just needed to warm up a bit for Jedi's gills to grow in.  ;o) He fetched the bumper numerous times at a distance that required a good swim. Thankfully, much like Secret, Jedi also managed to completely ignore the other dog when there was water/toys involved. There was one time when the owner started to let the flexi leash out and the dog snarled as she got closer to Jedi. He was oblivious, but I pointed out to the owner that this was not a friendly greeting and she pulled the dog back close to her.

We didn't stay a terribly long time because that other dog was pretty much having a fit and the owner was holding on to her collar the entire time. Jedi made it very clear that he was not ready to leave yet, because when I put the bumpers into the backpack he went tearing off back into the river and swam over to the people again. I had to haul him out with the long line and he literally screamed in protest. Once I got his leash back on him I had to drag him down the trail away from the water. Every time he saw the river as we walked back he tried to pull his way over. I let him go in again at the canoe landing because I wanted to check things out -- This used to be a jumping spot for Secret, but the development they did for the canoes ruined that. Jedi immediately went to the end of the leash and started swimming in place, trying to go out further, before I eventually had to pull him back to shore. I may have created a monster.

For dinner we did more pee trick against the window seats (my back is not up for the slight amount of bending that pivots require). Since then Jedi and Secret have been playing pretty much nonstop, so I guess their little trip was bonding for them and they are back to playing again.