Jedi had another successful night out of his crate last night. I didn't even attempt to start him out on the bed because he went and laid next to Secret on the big bed on the floor and it was cute. He didn't stay there very long, though, before he went into his crate, where I believe he spent the night. I finally got him to jump up on the bed for a bit around 7:30, but he apparently had other things to do and didn't stick around very long. Today I rearranged things a bit and moved the big bed next to the bed and the crate on the other side of that. We'll see if he continues to choose the crate, but at least now I don't have to climb over it to get in and out of bed.
For breakfast this morning we went out and worked on table downs. We haven't worked on this one in a while and it always seems to take a few tries to get him out of pee trick or bottom mode at the table. Jedi had to work through the distraction of the neighbor dogs yapping at the back fence and Kaiser barking back at them. This was difficult for him at first, but he always came back and went back to work. That's some pretty exciting stuff to work through.
After breakfast I cleaned up the yard and then let Jedi chase the frisbee for a bit. He's getting really good at catching the rollers on the fly. Before we went in the house I threw a couple of short tosses at Jedi, but they just hit him in the head.... I think he's got a bit of work (and growing up to do) before we need to worry about moving away from rollers. Grabbing the rollers is developing his bite on the disc, though, so that is good.
For lunch today we worked on heel work in the yard. Today I carried the food dish with me so that we could get in some longer patterns without disruption. This worked really well and Jedi did a great job sticking with me as we looped and circled our way around the yard. The only break in pattern is when food misses his mouth and gets lost in the grass. Unfortunately that happens quite a bit, but Jedi is getting quicker about catching back up (I just keep moving and leave the food for the other dogs to find).
Today was beautiful, especially compared to the last couple of brutal days. It was the perfect day to go check out the Butterfest parade here in Sparta. I took Kizzy along because she's the most people-social of my crew (aside from Luke, at least) and I figured there would be a lot of people. Unfortunately, she's also the most reactive when it comes to other dogs, so this ended up being not helpful, especially as she got hot and overstimulated. We coped, though, and it was still an overall good experience for Jedi.
We took the back way into the fest grounds because all of the roads were blocked off for the parade. I parked on a side street and we made our way to the food tent to say hello to my mom and grab a brat for lunch. From there we went to the corner of the park to watch the parade. This is the very end of the parade and the people/floats start to disband by the time they get there, but I figured there would still be plenty of action to take in and there was a lot of space for us to move around as needed.
As we waited for the parade to start we were bombarded by people (mostly children) who wanted to pet the dogs. Both Jedi and Kizzy soaked this in and enjoyed the attention. I brought Jedi's toy bag along and entertained him between visits with people. At one point Jedi and Kizzy were tugging together on the fuzzy octopus, which was fun until it escalated into an argument that I haven't seen happen between the two of them before. The toys went away after that.
The parade itself was fairly underwhelming, at least from the dogs' point of view. Jedi noticed the drums when they went by, and a couple of prancy horses at the beginning were fairly exciting (but that also happened at the same time Kizzy saw another dog and lost her mind for the first time, so who's to say what was cause of that excitement). None of the sirens, loud music, or other noises seemed to be any bother at all.
Even though the temperatures were only in the low 70s, the dogs started to wither in the sun fairly early on. We moved around to find different patches of shade that would still allow us to see the parade action. I guess I should say allowed me to see, because at that point the dogs just wanted to go under the nearest vehicle and take a nap. The parade was long and slow-moving, with many gaps between floats. It had reached us around 1:00 and I think I called it around 2:30, not knowing how much was left. I'm always a fan of the end of a parade because that's where they tend to put the horses, but the dogs were pretty done.
We stopped back at the food tent to say goodbye to my mom and then started to make our way to the Lion's shelter to say hi to my dad before we left. We walked through the carnival to get there, which was full of people and moving rides today. The only one the dogs seemed to notice was the ride that swung far in the air above us, but even then it was more of a glance upwards and that was it. Down at the shelter they got to meet a few new people and Jedi conned someone into sharing his bottle of water with him (I think Jedi only wanted the bottle). We didn't stay there too long before we started back to the van. The dogs got more water before we took off and Jedi crashed flat out for the short trip home.
We had a very quiet afternoon after all of that excitement. For dinner we went out and played with some teeter slams and bottoms. After that we played with the cones. Tonight I added a third cone to the game to offer a little more variety. Jedi did great with the addition.
Jedi had another successful night out of his crate last night. I didn't even attempt to start him out on the bed because he went and laid next to Secret on the big bed on the floor and it was cute. He didn't stay there very long, though, before he went into his crate, where I believe he spent the night. I finally got him to jump up on the bed for a bit around 7:30, but he apparently had other things to do and didn't stick around very long. Today I rearranged things a bit and moved the big bed next to the bed and the crate on the other side of that. We'll see if he continues to choose the crate, but at least now I don't have to climb over it to get in and out of bed.
For breakfast this morning we went out and worked on table downs. We haven't worked on this one in a while and it always seems to take a few tries to get him out of pee trick or bottom mode at the table. Jedi had to work through the distraction of the neighbor dogs yapping at the back fence and Kaiser barking back at them. This was difficult for him at first, but he always came back and went back to work. That's some pretty exciting stuff to work through.
After breakfast I cleaned up the yard and then let Jedi chase the frisbee for a bit. He's getting really good at catching the rollers on the fly. Before we went in the house I threw a couple of short tosses at Jedi, but they just hit him in the head.... I think he's got a bit of work (and growing up to do) before we need to worry about moving away from rollers. Grabbing the rollers is developing his bite on the disc, though, so that is good.
For lunch today we worked on heel work in the yard. Today I carried the food dish with me so that we could get in some longer patterns without disruption. This worked really well and Jedi did a great job sticking with me as we looped and circled our way around the yard. The only break in pattern is when food misses his mouth and gets lost in the grass. Unfortunately that happens quite a bit, but Jedi is getting quicker about catching back up (I just keep moving and leave the food for the other dogs to find). 
Today was beautiful, especially compared to the last couple of brutal days. It was the perfect day to go check out the Butterfest parade here in Sparta. I took Kizzy along because she's the most people-social of my crew (aside from Luke, at least) and I figured there would be a lot of people. Unfortunately, she's also the most reactive when it comes to other dogs, so this ended up being not helpful, especially as she got hot and overstimulated. We coped, though, and it was still an overall good experience for Jedi.
We took the back way into the fest grounds because all of the roads were blocked off for the parade. I parked on a side street and we made our way to the food tent to say hello to my mom and grab a brat for lunch. From there we went to the corner of the park to watch the parade. This is the very end of the parade and the people/floats start to disband by the time they get there, but I figured there would still be plenty of action to take in and there was a lot of space for us to move around as needed.
As we waited for the parade to start we were bombarded by people (mostly children) who wanted to pet the dogs. Both Jedi and Kizzy soaked this in and enjoyed the attention. I brought Jedi's toy bag along and entertained him between visits with people. At one point Jedi and Kizzy were tugging together on the fuzzy octopus, which was fun until it escalated into an argument that I haven't seen happen between the two of them before. The toys went away after that.
The parade itself was fairly underwhelming, at least from the dogs' point of view. Jedi noticed the drums when they went by, and a couple of prancy horses at the beginning were fairly exciting (but that also happened at the same time Kizzy saw another dog and lost her mind for the first time, so who's to say what was cause of that excitement). None of the sirens, loud music, or other noises seemed to be any bother at all.
Even though the temperatures were only in the low 70s, the dogs started to wither in the sun fairly early on. We moved around to find different patches of shade that would still allow us to see the parade action. I guess I should say allowed me to see, because at that point the dogs just wanted to go under the nearest vehicle and take a nap. The parade was long and slow-moving, with many gaps between floats. It had reached us around 1:00 and I think I called it around 2:30, not knowing how much was left. I'm always a fan of the end of a parade because that's where they tend to put the horses, but the dogs were pretty done.
We stopped back at the food tent to say goodbye to my mom and then started to make our way to the Lion's shelter to say hi to my dad before we left. We walked through the carnival to get there, which was full of people and moving rides today. The only one the dogs seemed to notice was the ride that swung far in the air above us, but even then it was more of a glance upwards and that was it. Down at the shelter they got to meet a few new people and Jedi conned someone into sharing his bottle of water with him (I think Jedi only wanted the bottle). We didn't stay there too long before we started back to the van. The dogs got more water before we took off and Jedi crashed flat out for the short trip home.
We had a very quiet afternoon after all of that excitement. For dinner we went out and played with some teeter slams and bottoms. After that we played with the cones. Tonight I added a third cone to the game to offer a little more variety. Jedi did great with the addition.
Weather in the 70's sounds wonderful! It's brutal here now. Stared increasing on Friday and I don't think there's a break in the forecast. I hate it.
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