I took Gustavo to a surprise birthday party last night at the beach. He was the only dog I took and the only dog there. The thing about Gustavo is that he has an off switch-even though he is so hyper other times (ie, such as right now, at 6:40 in the morning, he is running fast around the backyard with a giant green stuffed spider in his mouth and jumping on and off of things even though the other dogs are just sitting around) if I seperate him from the Others, he is very quiet and super well behaved. So he went to the beach party, I could put him in a down on his Place, which was a towel last night, and he would basically stay there until a party goer would borrow him and walk him around on a leash. Dog socializing for the Lazy Dog Trainer! He is the first dog I have had who will go and sit with a man, and lots of the men at the party thought he was cute and would make him sit in their laps, which he is very happy to do and not have to share with other dogs.
I felt sort of bad to take him and not the Others, but he needs to practice skills like this, and he is more like Timmy in his socializing with humans skills. Ruby and Otterpop don't have that in them. Ruby just ignores people unless they are willing to stuff food in her face and Otterpop only likes Certain People. Of which it can be tricky to discern if a new person can be a Certain Person. I am a little baffled by her criteria.
Gustavo has visited the inside of Home Depot and many parking lots to practice walking around calmly and waiting calmly in a down (that one needs a lot more practice) and at Home Depot he even gets to ride on a cart when I get the things like plywood and beadboard paneling in the correct size. Not the wrong size. Because that will go on next week because the tiling will be all done on Monday! The bathroom is looking stunning and has so much tile it makes nice echos when the dogs bark into it. There's a gate up while the current tile layer is drying and the dogs apparently think that racoons live anywhere there is tile and bark into the doorway alot to hear their barking echo. What fun for dogs! I am happy to be running dog Disneyland in my house, which also features the Find Simi's Taco game-endless fun searching through trash bags of the backyard to see where Simi threw away the tacos.
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