How rude!

I took the dogs to the park this morning, and it was filled with kids playing baseball! I guess they missed the memo that *I* was planning on using the field. They were actually only in a part of the field so I could have gone to the other side with the dogs. But Apollo has a huge 'thing' for kids and I was worried that he would run over to play with them (and probably scare the crap out of them).

I seriously considered trying to walk all 4 dogs to the park today, but I'm glad I decided to drive. I should probably attempt some puppy + 1 and puppy + 2 dog walks first. So far the puppy has only walked on his own.

We ended up going to a school yard about the same distance from our house as our normal park, but the other direction. The dogs had fun playing, Rampage was a bit hesitant at first because there was a big boxer barking on the other side of one fence, but I think the owners took him in because he stopped barking after a few minutes. I wonder what Rampage thinks these distant dogs are saying to him. From his reaction it must be death threats peppered with swear words.

You have to walk through the school yard to get to the field at this place. I only had a leash for the puppy because the usual park I go to the dogs get out of the car and voila! Park. As we were walking out today a fat little black Min Pin passed us on his way into the park without a person in tow. Thankfully I saw him and was able to grab Apollo before he saw him because like with the kids, Apollo would have taken off after the small dog (and scared the crap out of him, I'm sure). Thankfully Icon and Foster are better behaved and just watched the dog saunter by as if wondering how the heck HE was lucky enough to come to the park on his own.

So we had a fun morning despite not being able to go to our normal park. I even practiced some teeters with Icon this morning and did some training with the puppy in the back yard since it was sunny out. It was supposed to rain today so I thought I'd have them outside while I could. But it's noon and hasn't started raining yet...

Since I had the teeter out, I started playing the 'bang game' with Rampage where the goal is that he jumps on the teeter and gets into 2o/2o. I just started it with the teeter about 4" off the ground and have him bring the teeter all the way down with his feet. I have an aluminum teeter so it's really loud and I was happy with how he didn't pay any attention to the noise at all.

Oh, I also got a manners minder the other day and started introducing it to the dogs. Rampage wasn't sure about the motor sound, but after it stopped he was happy to go forward to get the treat. Icon was only a little wary of it and Foster and Apollo thought it was pretty neat, but they've seen one before.

A long time ago I bought a treat'n'train (the old name for the manners minder) but Apollo ate the remote for it so I couldn't use it anymore. I looked for a way to just get the remote, but I could fine one. So now I have 2 manners minders and 1 remote. I'll have to think of some fun things to do with that.