There's a difference.. a difference between boys and girls, a difference between puppies and adult dogs, a difference between smart dogs and well... smart dogs lol.
Today Bob and Egypt were lolly-gagging around and I called Bob over to get some lovin lol. Well as I call Bob over of course Egypt wants some lovin too, thats normal for our little group. The funny thing was seeing which paths they chose to get to me.. See, the we have a couch that looks like an L, its like a couch connected to a chaise, it also came with an ottoman.. so picture me on the chaise part of the couch, and the ottoman is pressed up against the end of it leaving only about 5 inches of space in between.. in front of the couch part though there is at least 2 feet of space between the couch and the ottoman... ok got it nice and pictured? So, I call Bob and he was standing closer to the chaise part so he went and stood right in front of the 5 inches of space between the couch and ottoman, Egypt had gotten up and was right there with him. So I say "Come here guys" and guess which one charged through pushing the ottoman out of the way and which one simply walked around the ottoman.. lol. Now I can't really decide which one took the better path, Egypt of course, took the path of least resistance and wound up getting to me slower than Bob did, and Bob took the harder yet faster path.. There are sometimes when they will switch those roles (Egypt is really good at moving our furniture) well, I'm not really here to judge I guess I just thought it was funny to see the difference of the two while in the exact same situation...
Solution for next time - get some lovin from each other :)
So, I know I'm supposed to be studying and not writing blogs but something happened today that totally blew me away and guess who did it! Mr. Bob did! Haha. Today was the first time I have seen Bob actually "think" I guess haha. Not that he isn't smart, it's just everything he's been doing is commands; you know, sit, down, stay, find the seat/door/whatever. I haven't had much of a chance to do the other things because I have been so focused on finals and my last test (which was on the 2nd to last day of school - who does that?!) That we haven't really been to many stores and such.. where Bob would need to find bathrooms and counters and stuff..
Anyways, point of my excitement - Bob 'guided' me around an obstacle today and once we were past went back to his original 'line'. You must know that we haven't actually come to any obstacles that we have had to work around (except for people I guess) so I was really anxious to see what he would do.
Stopping on a 'curb' it slopes down straight into the street
so these have been a bit tricky for Bob - he got plenty of practice today though ;)
We were walking in Darrell's brother's neighborhood and first came up to a truck that was sticking out onto the side walk a bit. I stopped Bob at it, showed it to him and then I led us around it and that was it. I wanted to see what he would do when we got back to it but just so happened we didn't take that same route back. However there was another car that was completely covering the sidewalk (Ours haha! - I'll have to remember that next time and park on the street lol.) Well, I wasn't really planning on working past our car, the turn into Mike's house is before the car so yeah.. Well, I wanted to see what Bob would do so I kept going and guess what! When we got up to the car he went straight down the driveway onto the street (which was about a foot or two away from the back of the car) and once we had passed it he tried to find a way back onto the sidewalk. What was really interesting was not only did he try and find his original line (the sidewalk) but that he knew not to go back up the driveway to get there. You see there was only about half a foot of driveway in between the car and the grass so instead of trying to go right back up there Bob continued to the next driveway. (Which was only about 2 feet away because Mike lives on a cul-de-sac.) So, we got back on the sidewalk and I praised like crazy - I'm so proud of that smart boy!
Walking on loose leash! Probably because he was
getting tired but still good haha :)
Oh - P.S. he ignored all the fenced in dogs like a pro! The only thing he was getting distracted by was a fire hydrant, which even Egypt had to be corrected at so I'm guessing it smelled really good haha. Well, after I corrected at the first fire hydrant we walked past another, I decided to get a video of this just incase he was good and remembered to 'leave it' haha. So here it is, you can't see the fire hydrant but you can see how the sidewalk curves around it and Bob stuck to the sidewalk like a pro!
A link to the video incase you can't watch it here. Click Me!
You can see how he was getting tired by the end of it. The walk wasn't even that long I think it was just the humidity today - probably the sun too. Both dogs seemed much happier on the way back though while we were walking in the shade haha.
Sorry the video and pictures aren't the best - they were taken on my phone because my camera is out of battery lol.
Ok, so I have a lot to blog about but not all in this blog.. haha. This will be a post about Bob's first training walk with our Puppy Raising Manager Michelle! Yay! So, first off, I forgot my camera so no cool pictures.. sorry :(
Second - his walk went great. First thing we did was learn how to find seats. We practiced on the outside chairs at Habanero's Grill. Basically its just repetitive 'find the seat' and we target the chair we want and reward when we get there. Oh and we have to sit in it! We found 4 chairs I think and then Michelle taught us how to find a door and the different ways to walk through them. Depending on whether its a left or right opening door will depend on how we walk through it, for the dog's protection. So after we learned chairs and doorways we made the short walk over to the Bass pro shop. In there we learned how to find the steps and how Bob is supposed to step up on them. We didn't really have to learn that one because Bob has been doing it from day 1. When I told Michelle this she said it was probably me projecting onto Bob; because I'm used to Darrell and Egypt I stop at all 'steps' anyways so I just anticipate him to do it too... Oh puppy brains - I don't really understand you but I like how you work!
Ok, so we get up the steps at Bass Pro and encounter big scary lions, Bob seemed kind of curious at first and then attempted to run away but it didn't really seem to affect him too much lol. We then introduced him to a 200$ plastic duck (decoy).. he didn't even give it a second sniff lol. So we headed back down the stairs - Bob sitting at each break. We leave Bass Pro and head back to Habanero's where I got chips and queso and Be Oh Be got nothin!
Here is the only picture of the day - courtesy of Michelle's cell phone.
So Bob is odd.. very odd and I can't figure out if his little odd actions are him being really really smart or him just appearing to be really smart... hmmmm.
Ok so by now you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about right? Well here is what I'm talking about...
For two days in a row now I have the feeling like Bob is just humoring me when I ask him to go busy right before he gets lunch. He knows when he gets out of the kennel that he's going to get lunch.. he knows his schedule haha. Anyways, when I take him out to go to the bathroom before lunch he doesn't want to go - he just tries so hard to get back inside and straight to the spot where he gets his food.. Well I make him stay outside and tell him to Go Busy so he'll give up walk like 1 step and do a tiny little squat and gets out what tinkle he can and then runs over to the door again... Is he humoring me just so he can get to lunch earlier?
Another thing is today while I had him on tie-down next to the couch while I did some homework and Bob picked up something off the ground - laundry linty stuff I think because he got it from right next to the laundry basket. Anyways, I saw him chewing out of the corner of my eye but when I actually looked at him he looked up and stopped immediately.... I thought he had swallowed whatever it was so I looked away.. but as soon as I did he started chewing again.. so I got him and got the little paper thing out and let him go... So, my question about his brains - did he stop chewing because I looked at him and he knew that I would take it away or did he just happen to stop chewing for the exact length of time that I was watching him? Hmmmm we'll have to see what he does next time this happens...
