Saturday

We rewarded ourselves with ice cream at Strachan’s downtown after lunch and after our pet training at Petsmart this morning.

Toby remains in last place in his class. He never settled. He did, however, do all of his commands. His teacher complimented his personality and said she would always have job security as long as there were dogs like Toby.

We did get an answer to John’s burning question: “When is it okay to use your excited voice?” Answer: “almost never.”  Puppies feed off of your energy. The goal is to keep them calm. 

Our teacher recommended feeding Toby his meal while on his walk. She explained that dogs can run up to 22 mph, so walking with us is kind of boring. Feeding him will keep him by our side, keep his interest, and make the walk fun for him.

Our teacher was perplexed by our reward word: “treat.” She had recommended “yes.” We told her we say “yes” a lot at our house and thought that would confuse him. “Did you check the mail?” “Yes.” Do you want to eat now?” “Yes.” “Did you get gas while you were out?” “Yes.” 

We never say “treat,” and since that’s what it is, it seemed a no-brainer to call it what it is. She said we must have a very agreeable household. 

The bike ride downtown was nice. It was 86 degrees with lots of cloud cover.

We had thunderstorms roll through beginning around 4:30.

Our delicious fruit and veggie bowl for lunch. The peaches and plums have been awesome this summer.

The good part of pet training is that Toby is out of it for the rest of the day.

He perked up later in the afternoon.

Miles walked: 7.6

Miles biked: 7.02