Six-Day-Break Part 2
Brian and I took Cheyenne to the dog park for the very first time on Sunday! I can see why Cosmo was labeled 2007's Best Dog Park nationwide. It was sweeeeet. There was one fenced-in area specifically for timid dogs, a separate fenced-in area for outgoing pups, and a third fenced-in area with a dock leading into a HUGE lake. The timid area looked extremely boring - just grass. The outgoing area had fun concrete doodads for dogs to climb all over - for instance, the pyramid with sort of steps. What can I say about the lake? There were a couple of tennis balls floating around from dogs refusing to retrieve, lol.
We brought a frizbee, tennis ball, and bag full of food. The dog is seriously food motivated. She's too smart (and lazy) to retrieve. She just looks at you and is like "yah, you threw it...so you go get it!" We had all of the other dogs going nuts around us, though, lol. But show her a morsel of food and she'll do whatever you want if she understands, save for swimming in the lake. She DID dip in all fours where the shallow shelf was, though.
Our biggest reason for taking her to the dog park, besides the obvious fun and exercise, was to focus on socializing her. She has no problem with adults or calm dogs, but kids and rambunctious dogs scare her a bit. She's never shown aggression...she just comes to me, Brian, or the closest adult for support. But she did so good! There was a point when Brian and I were able to walk away without her following us, and she climbed the pyramid without being told and played with some kids before coming to find us!
So the next day (Monday), to continue her confidence building program, we took her hiking with us at Camelback Mountain (I went twice in four days!) Cheyenne never stopped wagging her tail!! I swear she's half mountain goat the way she was bounding up the rocks. Although she did not have it so easy going down. She even slipped once and kind of slid down a little ways on her side, landing on her back. It was scary to watch, but she was completely unscathed. There was also a part on the way down where some guy picked her up and carried her down a little ways. Brian and I were both like, "excuse me...what do you think you're doing??" Oh well. She was the talk of the mountain =)
Oh yah, she also got her first bath (after going to the dog park on Sunday)! She definitely did not like it, but she's really well behaved. She had completely forgotten about the whole thing five minutes later, too, when she was happily tearing apart a rawhide on her dog bed.
We brought a frizbee, tennis ball, and bag full of food. The dog is seriously food motivated. She's too smart (and lazy) to retrieve. She just looks at you and is like "yah, you threw it...so you go get it!" We had all of the other dogs going nuts around us, though, lol. But show her a morsel of food and she'll do whatever you want if she understands, save for swimming in the lake. She DID dip in all fours where the shallow shelf was, though.
Our biggest reason for taking her to the dog park, besides the obvious fun and exercise, was to focus on socializing her. She has no problem with adults or calm dogs, but kids and rambunctious dogs scare her a bit. She's never shown aggression...she just comes to me, Brian, or the closest adult for support. But she did so good! There was a point when Brian and I were able to walk away without her following us, and she climbed the pyramid without being told and played with some kids before coming to find us!
So the next day (Monday), to continue her confidence building program, we took her hiking with us at Camelback Mountain (I went twice in four days!) Cheyenne never stopped wagging her tail!! I swear she's half mountain goat the way she was bounding up the rocks. Although she did not have it so easy going down. She even slipped once and kind of slid down a little ways on her side, landing on her back. It was scary to watch, but she was completely unscathed. There was also a part on the way down where some guy picked her up and carried her down a little ways. Brian and I were both like, "excuse me...what do you think you're doing??" Oh well. She was the talk of the mountain =)
Oh yah, she also got her first bath (after going to the dog park on Sunday)! She definitely did not like it, but she's really well behaved. She had completely forgotten about the whole thing five minutes later, too, when she was happily tearing apart a rawhide on her dog bed.