Gracie's back!

The labrador is back! Gracie returned from prison this past Friday. Her handlers weren't very experienced so they got to learn some of the training techniques on a nutty but well trained dog.

She did get some more training on reigning in her low blood sugar alert. Before going to prison, I was working on Gracie not mobbing me as her alert. I got her to the point where she was doing a nice nose nudge 75% of the time and a jumping attack the other 25%. With other people that seemed to be in reverse, with her only jumping most of the time and only doing a nice nudge 25% of the time. On her return it appears as though the jumping alert is mostly gone. The downside is that she seems more confused as to what her alert should be. She's still catching the scent very quickly and you can see her sniffing excitedly, but now she does more sitting back and staring. Waiting to be told what to do. Some experimental pawing is happening as well. Oh well, she has plenty of time to fix it!

Back at home I've discovered a new pond for the dogs to play in! Unfortunately it's not quite in walking distance, but it's still fairly close. Technically it's a disc golf park and not an actual dog park. But it appears to be an unofficial dog park as I've seen many owners and dogs walking off leash along the paths and especially around the small lake. I wish it were less crowded, but the few times I've been it hasn't been too bad and all the dogs seemed pretty well in control of their owners. That's helped with the fact that the park is not fenced and there's actual disc golfers there as well who don't want dog interference!

I ordered Vito a life jacket that will hopefully come soon! While Vito hasn't gotten a ton of swimming practice over the years, he has still been in the water often enough as to where I feel he should actually know how to...not look like he's drowning! The Toller still has no clue how to move his back legs in the water. He's just so excited by water and his version of swimming that zero thinking is occurring. Even without a toy for him to obsess over. Maybe a life jacket will allow him to think about the mechanics a bit more.

Drowning in the middle of the pond.