Boot Camp

The weekend before last, I took Leo to the Stoll Park dog park. It took him about 30 minutes to find the 8-inch deep mudpit in the wooded area of the park. This was mud that was full of decaying organic matter. He was a disgusting mess.

Yesterday, it took him about 5 minutes to find the same mudpit. Since he loves to include any person he can find in the best game in the entire world (throwing a tennis ball for Leo to fetch) I needed to put him on the leash immediately or every person at the park would have also been covered in mud. I was meeting a friend there so that our dogs could play together. While all the other dogs got to frolic and sniff each other to their hearts content, Leo had to stay within the 20 feet radius of me afforded by his retractable leash.

This picture was taken a few years ago in Washington, but it gives you an idea of what Leo looked like each of the past two weekends!

This morning I took him to the dog park at Shawnee Mission Park so that he could swim in the lake. He did not get muddy, but his behavior was disappointing. After only throwing the ball into the water twice, he decided to swim along the shore, picking up other dogs' tennis balls until he ended up about 20 yards beyond the dog park boundary. He was standing on the shore, surrounded by about 5 tennis balls, wagging his tail, wondering why I didn't climb over the brush (or go for a swim myself) to get to him and continue our game.

He finally came back over to me (only bringing 3 of the tennis balls - fortunately dog parks are full of stray tennis balls. The victims of his theft had plenty of other balls with which to play) I let him swim for a couple more minutes, but the next time he made a move to swim away from me, I decided it was time to go home.

I picked up some training size dog treats this afternoon, so doggie boot camp will begin tonight. Leo does enjoy working on his commands (come, down, heel, stay, go to bed, etc.) He has trouble staying in the "sit" position for more than 4 or 5 seconds because of the arthritis in his knees, but when he is "down" he can "stay" just fine. I hope that a couple of weeks of two-a-days will get him back to more polite behavior when we visit the dog parks.

I know that this is my fault. I ought to have him practice his commands a few times a week to keep them fresh in his mind. After boot camp is over, I'll need to be sure that we don't slack off again.