Can I just say that I love puppy socializing at this time of year? Not that we've had much summer weather...but there is just so much more to do here in the summer and having a puppy in need of socialization around is the perfect excuse to go enjoy it all.
On a side note - I need to bring my good camera next time. I haven't taken any Kepler pictures with it yet!
Jess, Kepler, Emma, 7, Abby and I went and checked out the Jazz festival this weekend. There were a lot of noisy booths (including the magical waffle bowl/fruit/ice cream/chocolate sauce booth that we probably would have been better off not finding) and a crazy noise-making instrument kid plaza of some kind. I'm really not sure what it was but could you ask for a more ideal puppy experience?
I had decided to bring Abby since Ryan came on the last outing and I haven't given Abby enough crowd credit these days. She really is a different dog than she once was, and when she has her harness on the whole yo-y0 leash-walking thing is a lot less frustrating. She isn't and never will be the Walmart greeter dog but she is able to look at anything without reacting and she is alert but relaxed even with kids/dog/people/noise all around her. A few people (adults) wanted to pet her and I let Abby choose to go say hi - which she did, briefly, until she realized they weren't interesting to her in any way. We still play the 'look at that' game (especially around the aforementioned noise-making instrument kid plaza) but it's more to keep Abby occupied than a necessity anymore. Yay! Small victories :)
Today I stole Kepler and took him to visit a friend who has a 4 month old puppy, Poppy. The two puppies loved each other and I can't get enough of watching puppy play. I let Ryan into the yard for a bit but he was pretty nervous of my friend's kids (ages 3 and 6). He has gotten more nervous around children as he gets older and that is completely my fault - not enough continued child socializing. I haven't put enough effort into it since I'm not around kids (except for my wonderful and perfect "nephew" Loic) very often. I felt bad for putting Ryan into the yard situation today since he was obviously nervous and was only half interested in playing ball when the kids threw it (a very big sign of being nervous for Ry since he looooves his ball). I took him out of the yard after a few minutes and then stewed about this black hole in his socialization. Sigh.
To make matters worse...the poor Ry guy got attacked on my run this evening! The dog is a wolf hybrid kind of thing and she attacked Ryan another time a few months ago. I don't use the word 'attacked' loosely. Ryan was trotting down the side of the path a bit behind me completely minding his own business, not making any kind of eye contact with this dog (I was watching since she looked like the dog who'd gone after him before, but I wasn't sure yet - feel bad about that, too - should have stayed closer to poor Ryan!). She was staring at Ryan and then suddenly lunged across the path and jumped him from behind, pinning him to the ground and biting him while he screamed. He managed to run across the path with her still on top of him and finally she kind of stopped and her owner grabbed her. I started out telling the owner that his dog really needs to be on a leash, and when he turned out to be a completely asshole about the whole thing ("my dog did nothing wrong! there isn't a mark on your dog! she has been playing with all the other dogs!"), Jess and I both lost it on the guy and started yelling at him about how irresponsible he is and how his dog is going to hurt another dog. The guy really didn't care and walked off with his dog still off leash.
Le sigh. I hate people sometimes. Ryan is fine but I bet he needs a good night's sleep after a stressful day. Seeing your dog get attacked like that is beyond awful.
Pictures are taking forever to upload. Maybe I'll just put them in a separate post.
Oh and this is not dog related, but Jess and I have now been following our 'fitness plan' very well for 3 months! We are both trying to eat better and we run (for about 35 minutes) or go to the gym (for about an hour) at least 5 days/week. Go us!
