Leader of the Pack

The Adventure Pack

Our on-leash practice week continued today with Benny, Oliver, Rucksack, and Sputnik all doing a very good job.  Every so often, I stopped and asked everyone to sit.  When I tried this earlier in the week, it took a while for everyone to get on the same page.  The first couple times we tried it today, it also took some time to get everyone's attention.  By the end of the hike, today's pack members were all responding fairly promptly.  During the last 15 minutes of the hike, though, Sputnik had a burst of pupppy energy and tried wrestling with all of his packmates.  Benny was willing to oblige but that just resulted in tangled leashes and a complete lack of forward progress, so I interrupted them.  When Sputnik turned his attention to Rucksack and Oliver in turn, they were less interested in playing and complained about their pushy packmate until I got him to settle down.

The Play Pack

Yoda joined us at the park today and spent the first part of our visit sniffing around to check out the new surroundings.  Meanwhile, Coco was intent on playing fetch and hovered around me with an intense stare until I started throwing for her.  Benny and Oscar went to say hello to the regulars who we typically see at the park.  Later on, Yoda turned his attention from the surroundings to the company and hung out at the hub of where the dogs were gathered.  There was a long-haired black dog who danced around with him for a while before leaving.  Then, Yoda found an Australian Shepherd who he really wanted to play with and did lots of play-bows for.  Unfortunately, the other dog only had three legs and his remaining back leg was weak, so he wasn't up for all the play that Yoda wanted; however, he did lean on Yoda and toss his head around playfully.  Benny got a lot of love from the humans at the park and was content with that.  Oscar found more little dogs to hang out with, including a Boston Terrier who played with him for a while.