I know that I have a huge trip to update you on, but our pictures are still a jumbled mess (835 at last count), so that blog post will have to wait.
Yesterday a woman riding her bike zips past Sullivan and me out on our morning walk and then proceeds to turn around for a quick chat. Turns out she has a newly adopted ten year-old dog in desperate need of some doggie company. She manages to hold her composure when I tell her that Sullivan is five and a half months old and bravely does not rescind the invitation.
So, at 9 am on the dot, after a longish morning walk (in an effort to wear out the puppy so he doesn't kill the geriatric), Sullivan and I trot over to this house. Two things run through my head first:
1. Is this normal? I thought only kids had play dates? What happens if Sullivan claws this dog's eyes out?
2. Holy cow, this house is on a pond. A big one. And my dog is obsessed with water. And swimming--despite the fact that Thomas had to jump in the water at the dog park the other day b/c Sullivan likes to "swim" vertically.
The dogs run around together for a bit and the older dog is surprisingly spry. Sullivan's goofy uncoordination is evident and hilarious. After about 4 minutes of happy playing, both dogs BOOM are in the water. I scream like a fishwife on shore for about 15 minutes as Sullivan ignores my crazed shoutings and swims like a champ while running in and out of the water. So we take the dogs around front to play. Of course, 30 seconds later they have returned to the backyard for some more aquatic expeditioning.
The play date came to an abrupt end when both dogs, out of the water for once, were tearing around the backyard and due to an unfortunate aligning of positions, Sullivan bodyslammed the older dog into a palm tree. Lucy took it like a champ but it pretty much freaked out the two dog moms. After a quick shower together (oh my! on the first date!) the dogs parted ways.
I suggested my pondless, fenced in backyard for the next one, though my gauge of "how much of a disaster was that?"may be malfunctioning.
This sealed the deal for me on puppy training classes. I'm especially interested in the commands:
"Sullivan, get out of the pond right now" and "Sullivan, stop humping a dog old enough to be your great great grandmother"
Wow that's hilarious! I am picturing how Belle (my black lab...did you ever get to meet her?) always ran around like crazy whenever she saw another dog...that's just awesome. Although Belle was afraid of water. Go figure. She kind of failed as a lab.
ReplyDeleteP.S. obedience school is a must.