October 28, 2008

Day 3- Albany to NJ

.
His first night in a hotel was great! No problems in my parent's house last night either. When I got up in the morning, I don't think he was ready to wake up yet. He stayed curled up till I put my shoes on and then took him out.

We went to the breakfast area of the hotel and he sat under the table while I ate. He intently watched the lady whose high heels clicked across the hardwood floor but he didn't move or bark. Then we went to the mall again. Much more quiet at this time of the morning (before most stores were open) but he still got loved on by several mall walkers.

Since it wasn't raining as predicted, we found a nature preserve to walk in near a beautiful lake with fall colors in the back ground. I'm glad I took an umbrella though because it did rain while we were out on the short trail. Dazzle wasn't bothered by the rain or the umbrella. The rain didn't last long though.

He was very interested in the many ducks on the lake. I did get some photos I think turned out really nice.

He kept sliding down the bank on his belly...



He tried to chase the ducks that swam fairly close to the shore, but soon found out the vegitation at the edge of the water was NOT solid, but actually leaves and pine needles floating on the water. He only got about half of his front legs wet, but was very surprized! I didn't get that on camera, but you can see the stuff on the water at the edge of the lake in the photo above and below. It really did look like it might be solid, not scummy like it looks in the photo.



Camo puppy...



He liked the tall grass, but did end up with one tick crawling on his fur. There were big signs in the park warning about the ticks, but I thought it had been cold enough in the area to kill them off or send them into hibernation or whatever.


After some time at the park we went back to the hotel so I could get ready. I kept him awake from 7:30am till 11:30 am when I was ready to leave for my presentation. I put him in his crate in the van and he immediately fell asleep. As I had hoped, he was tired enough to sleep in his crate through my whole 3 hour presentation. Then he got loved on by the host and some of the attendees.

We went back to the hotel so I could change out of business attire and I put on my back brace for the 3 hour drive to NJ. I found it really helps on the longer drives since I didn't want to be taking a lot of pain killers. Even though he had a long nap, he slept most of the trip. We got to the hotel around 7pm and he played in the room till 11 pm. Even though we were on the 3rd floor, he did great holding it for the walk/elevator ride downstairs for potty breaks. We played 2 toy fetch and I used a release cue when I knew he was about to let go of the toy. He was having a blast scooting around under the bed and growling quietly. Then he fell asleep under there.

He slept in a completely covered crate in prep for tomorrow.