Hard to keep up!

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Dazzle is sleeping a LOT less now, so it's hard to keep up with the stuff I need to do during his naps. :-) He got into major "zoom mode" last night and was going till 1am! I can feel the effects of getting less sleep in my moodiness. Of course Mike says he doesn't notice because I'm always moody! But that's not the word he used. LOL

Yesterday evening, I got some of his training on video but video editing and uploading takes forever! I'll get them up as soon as I can. I got some of his "zoom mode" too where he was wrestling with a cardboard box. It's REALLY funny! He has started a new game where he takes a toy and runs from the dining room, past me and into the laundry room and back. He slows down when he gets near me as though to "tease" and I scritch his butt as he goes by saying "I'm gonna get ya!" He will also bring me the toy when I call him, so I'm not too worried about teaching him to play "keep away." All my dogs do it, but will stop and bring the toy when told.

He's initiating play with the other dogs more often. Buster is still the one returning play the most, though Bear was in zoom mode trying hard to get Dazzle to chase him last night while we were outside and it was so out of character from what Dazzle has seen of him he wasn't sure what to make of it.

Our vet appointment went well and he's now in chiropractic alignment. He wasn't quite sure what to make of all the handling and manipulating by the vet but handled it well. I'm starting to work on restraints and mouth work with him using the clicker and it's going really well.

This morning I had to get an oil change, so of course he went with me. We played out in the parking lot while the sounds of compressors, impact wrenches and banging/clanging went on in the back ground. He stopped a few times to watch and listen, but mostly ignored it and wanted to eat pebbles he found on the ground. He really seems to like to carry little pebbles around. Thankfully, as far as I can tell, he doesn't eat them (or the sticks, leaves, nuts, and whatever else he finds to pick up and carry.) I don't think teaching him a retrieve will be an issue!

After the oil change, we went to Bass Pro shop and wandered around in there for awhile. He rode his first elevator (twice) and didn't seem to even notice it was moving or that the scenery had changed when the doors opened. :-) He is walking really well on the leash connected to his harness. He does occasionally pull though and when I tried to have the leash attached to his collar, he did a lot of coughing. So it has stayed attached to his harness. I actually WANT him to pull in the harness and I'll teach him to walk without pulling using Shirley Chong's method or Brenda Aloff's method of moving with pressure on the collar to teach him not to pull when the leash is attached to the collar.

When we got home, we both took a nap out back in the shade of the privacy fence. I took a pillow out to the Adirondack chair and Dazzle slept under the chair. All the other dogs came out to nap as well. Taking advantage of the nice temperatures while I can!

I brought in one of the kid's toys Chad and Sarah gave him (a triangle frame with cloth on two sides that has holes for some sort of tossing game) and he played and played with it. He was wrestling with it, dragging it around, rolling it on top of him and putting his body through as many of the openings as possible, usually all at once. I got a short video I'll share at some point. He was also chewing on it and eventually shredded it to the point that I had to remove the cloth. He did have one last victory lap around the house with just the cloth flying behind him though! The plastic frame doesn't seem to be nearly as interesting as the cloth with holes was though.

I really need to get outside and do another tracking session before it gets completely dark, but I don't know if I'll get to that. He's napping right now so I don't really want to wake him up! Maybe we'll find a lighted parking lot when he gets his night time energy burst. :-)

I did two short tracks with him yesterday and he did great! Even after a car drove through the area where I was about to lay a track. Completely deserted lot of a tiny abandoned school on the edge of a town that only has one police officer, sometimes on duty, and the car has to drive through it?! The next tracks, I'll space the food a bit farther apart and make them a bit longer. I was scoping out possible lots today on my way home.

Well, that gets you up to date. I'm going to go back to video editing so I can maybe upload some before I get too far behind!