Yesterday was obedience class day. Kaline figured out, within minutes of class starting, how to escape from his playpen. First you pull up the “floor,” which is velcroed to the walls of the pen. Then you throw yourself at the walls until one of them caves inward, and finally you squirm out from under the now-breached wall. Sometimes he is a little too smart! Luckily, another dog parent (whose significant other was handling their Whippet) was overjoyed to have a puppy to look after. Kaline got to be a distraction several times (yes, he was a planned distraction).
To my great joy, Kaline seemed totally on board with napping away the afternoon. I'm still very sleep deprived even though he is basically sleeping through the night now (massive sleep debt and all) so I needed major naptime! Juno did too.
In the evening, we went on a big walk. We walked all the way over to the rec center, where there was a big barbecue going on and where the local skate park is located. Kaline is a kid magnet—as soon as we appeared on the outskirts of the barbecue, every kid in attendance came over wanting to pet the dogs. I tried to keep it to one at a time for Kaline—luckily Juno loves kids, so she was able to take some of the focus off the puppy—but eventually we got surrounded. This wasn't good for him or me, so we said our goodbyes and headed to the skate park.
I found a bench outside the fence, put Juno in a down-stay, and lifted Kaline onto the bench so he could see the skaters. He started trembling. I was like, “Oh crap, he's totally scared of the skaters.” Then I realized that his trembling didn't change regardless of noise/lack thereof, or proximity of skaters. The bench had very smooth slats ... I put Kaline down next to Juno, and presto! No problem with skaters. The bench and his lack of traction on it was what had him freaked out. He was so nonplussed by the noisy skaters that he was fully able to concentrate on doing sit, down, watch, even high five. We're going to keep going back periodically though, just to make sure he stays cool with skaters of all sorts.
Today, Kaline had two big outings, one to my cousin's house in Berkeley, and then the other to the fundraiser. There was a little family gathering at my cousin's. It was one of the longest car rides Kaline has done, and he did pretty well. I mean, he was in the backseat with me and Juno, so there wasn't too much to be unhappy about!
We had to stay on the porch due to allergies, but we still got to hang out with pretty much everyone, and the weather was gorgeous. The backyard is amazing as well—it took forever for Kaline to pee because he was so busy checking things out, and this is a puppy who pees nearly instantly when you tell him to. We worked on training several different times with both dogs. They got to meet my cousin Harris' new baby, along with various other adult cousins and my aunt. Kaline and Juno both got to sunbathe a lot and seemed to enjoy the relaxation. My aunt and her husband had a great time entertaining the pup—they have two Labs at home, one just a year old, so they're definitely puppy people!
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| In the car on the way home. |
Both dogs slept on the way home; everyone took a nap for a while once we got here, and then around 5:30 we left for the Legends fundraiser. It was at a local park. There were tons of people there, lots of activity and food. I was super impressed at Kaline's behavior in the food line. Obviously it's not something we've had a chance to work on before. Kaline sat whenever I paused (not next to me or anything, but hey! he sat!) and even though there was food on the ground, he didn't move to go for it. What a good boy.
He did get a bit antsy while we were eating. He was great at mingling, going to meet all these different people (men, women, children, woohoo!), but sitting still, not so much. Periodically there'd be these agonized yelps coming from under the table. I had brought Kaline's dinner in my bait bag though, so whenever he did a down, he got rewards and started offering that more. Like at my cousin's, we periodically did quick training sessions. Just for shits and giggles, I taught him to high five with his other paw (cue: other hand). Everyone was in love with him and Juno.
Juno was a huge hit because in 2009, my summer with the Legends, she ended up becoming the mascot. All the guys from then are still crazy about her. She used to chill in the dugout every game. I always tried to enforce a no-dip zone around her, because she would usually manage to lie down in a little puddle of it if the opportunity arose. Ew. Once, we were in a dugout that featured a ton of yellow jackets. Juno was avidly following the insects with her eyes. We kept telling her not to try anything, she'd be sorry. Eventually, she lunged, snapped, caught a yellow jacket in her mouth, killed it, and spat it out. Then she gave me a look like, “Really? I'm not sorry!” Juno's a badass, what can I say.
At the fundraiser, Kaline also experienced his first concert. He was basically asleep by then, so the lovely sounds of Windy Hill didn't wake him up. He got chilly in his thin little Dobie coat (Juno, with her nice double coat due to her Lab and/or GSD heritage, was fine), so I ended up wrapping him in a nice blanket that David let us use for the remainder of the concert.
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| Windy Hill!!! |
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