Back and forth

Moped has been back and forth, in and out of his kennel all afternoon. He keeps trying to get stuff off of the table. I keep redirecting him to his toys but he just goes back to the table. David is home now and Moped is scratching at the kennel and whining, so I've let him out. He's being a little terror so he's gone back into his kennel.

He just loves plastic bottles, empty or full. He's constantly going after them off of the living room end table. I'd let him play with them, but that would be encouraging him to get the bottles. He also likes the tissue box and tissues. And pretty much anything else he can get :-)

I love my dogs. We've had Skooter for seventeen months and we've had Moped for six months now. Ironically, we got them both in August, Skooter of '05 and Moped of '06. Skooter was a couple of weeks older than Moped when we got him. We got Mopes when he was a day shy of eight weeks old. Sometimes I wonder if he'd be calmer if we had got him a couple of weeks later. Doesn't matter, everything happens for a reason, and these dogs were meant to be mine.

Skooter has gone back and visited with his Mom and half-sister (from an earlier litter). I'm glad he did because his Mom passed away last April, just before Skooter's first birthday. I had sent a letter from Skooter to his Mom thanking her and Dave for bringing him into the world. Unfortunately, his Mom passed away before his breeder, Dave, got the letter. It was bittersweet. Dave wrote a very touching letter to us.

Skooter is asleep on the couch and Moped is in his kennel (again) because he can't behave and he always jumps on David when he's reading the newspaper. Oh yeah, that another thing he loves to snatch - the newspaper. So he's taking a nap and David is reading the paper in peace. Skooter seems happy taking a nap too.

Tomorrow is training day - 10 am for Moped and 2pm for Skooter. If the weather is nice, we'll bring Moped to doggie day care after his training session and pick him up later in the day. I don't think they've made any improvement in training behaviors since last week, but there's been so much going on and I haven't been training as consistently. Anyway, my focus isn't on training but on their behavior changes (which are occurring).

My day is still wrapped up in the dogs and I need to change that. I need to take care of myself and get my stuff done before I start in with them. Having them out is great, but I have to watch them every minute, well, Moped anyway. So, it kind of tethers me down. I need to let them out as much as I can, but I still need time for me to get stuff done during the day (laundry, dishes, errands, etc.). That means that at certain points during the day they'll need to go in their kennels to nap so I can get some stuff done. Hey, isn't that what new moms say? :-)

The reason it doesn't help me to put them on tie down is that Moped can get out of his collar and harness when he's on tie down. Skooter is actually just fine off of tie down (well, besides chasing the cats). That's why we're having trouble getting them into the bedroom at night. That and Moped chewing on the bed. We're going to change the room around this weekend (really, we are ;-) ) and get them into the bedroom at night to sleep. We'll just have to figure out a way to keep Moped on the tie down. I'll ask for some suggestions to do that.

I'm really looking forward to dog training tomorrow even though I never got the dog's into the facility this week. I just feel so much less stress after talking to Misty. Training will be fun.