My New Years Resolution... which was my Puppy Raiser's idea! (by: Gerrit)

My puppy raiser told me shortly after the start of the new year that MY New Years Resolution was going to be more dog distraction training. I don't quite get the whole concept of resolutions, but I thought that people (and dogs) were supposed to write their own resolutions! What's up with my puppy raiser writing mine? Anyways, I decided to just go with it because heck, I LOVE dog distractions!

Today I found out that my idea of dog distractions and my puppy raisers idea of dog distractions are totally different. Or, I should say... what we DO with those dog distractions are totally different things. I thought by dog distractions I would get to go play with a bunch of other dogs. But, instead my puppy raiser brought me to a dog park and worked with me on commands!!! It was awful! It was like the biggest tease in the world. Here we were at this HUGE dog park with TONS of dogs of all different shapes and sizes, and instead of entering the dog park, my puppy raiser made me work! The worst part was when we went to this bench and she made me do a whole sequence of commands... down, up, side, jump, off, heel, under, etc. etc. And from where the bench was, I had FULL view of all the other dogs running and playing. I could hardly think straight! My puppy raiser told me that was the whole point. She said I tend to lose a few brain cells when I'm around other dogs and that we need to work on that. Lose a few brain cells? Of course I lose a few brain cells... who needs them when play is involved?!!

After working around this bench, we then walked up to the fence of the dog park and we walked along it. Every time my brain cells would start to fade and I began forging, my puppy raiser turned into me. This was even worse than the bench... because we attracted an audience of OTHER DOGS! They walked along with us on the other side of the fence and every time we turned and went in the other direction, they turned and followed us! Everywhere we went, they went!

After the whole dog park ordeal, my puppy raiser then took me to the pet store where we worked some more! She made me do all kinds of commands right in front of the fish tanks, dog toys, dog food, and OTHER DOGS!!!

Needless to say, by the time we got home I was TIRED... but, not too tired to play of course! So, while my puppy raiser worked in her studio, Carlo, Lucky and I played. But, then we got kind of bummed that my puppy raiser wasn't playing with us, so we kept peeking our heads into the studio to see if she was done yet. She managed to take a few quick shots of us doing this. That's a photo above of me and Carlo peeking in (I'm the one with the nylabone in my mouth)... and here's a photo of Lucky doing it as well.

After a whole lot of peeking, we finally convinced her to set down the camera and we ALL ran outside and played. Whew, FINALLY!

I tell ya'... this dog distraction New Years Resolution sure is gonna be a tough one!