Routines continued concerning going outside, meals, and treats. Short play sessions that are very active for about 5 minutes before Indy decides he is done, noting tonight that he did seem physically tired. and needed to rest.
He paid attention to a cat today and lunged toward it, but only because it ran away on our approach, the others had laid still.
He passed the vacuum test with flying colors (unlike our previous dogs). When I started the vacuum he only danced around and barked once before sitting off to the side and watching. Yay! No more vacuum maulings 🙂
Add golf carts to lawn equipment as things that seem to cause anxiety. A neighbor drove up to us in a golf cart during one of our walks. Indy immediately dug in, sat, and refused to move; he has not shown this reaction to passing cars. The neighbor left his cart and walked up to Indy with his hand extended for Indy to sniff (this man is a dog owner), but Indy refused to have anything to do with him, a surprising reaction from the dog who has enthusiastically greeted everyone he has met in the last week. It must have been something to do with the sound of the cart because he met the same neighbor on a later walk and had his usual friendly meet and greet.
Indy is very fond of The Boy. When he was leaving the house yesterday it seemed as if Indy was trying to block him leaving through the door. Once The Boy was gone Indy howled at me and wasn’t happy until I leashed him up to go outside where it appeared he was trying to track him. When The Boy returned home today Indy demanded his attention as soon as he came through the door. And speaking of demanding, Indy wanted some couch time with me this morning when I returned home from the grocery. He woofed and ran ahead of me to the sofa for belly rubs and cuddles, but I guess I got up before HE was done because he woofed at me again when I stood up. I sat down immediately and resumed attention, but with much laughter. I know that probably was reinforcing his behavior, but I just found his reaction so funny.
On our long evening walk Indy met not one, but two dogs at the same time outside the confines of the dog park. The small dog he had encountered previously with no issues, but the second dog was a very much larger Golden by the name of Charlie who lives next door and belongs to friends of ours. He . After yesterday’s encounter with the larger dog through the dog park fence, I was hesitant about this encounter, but Indy made me proud. All dogs were sniffed, humans were greeted, petting accepted and that was that. As we humans engaged in conversation, the dogs got bored and sat down, and Indy received compliments for how well behaved he was. YaY!
And one last note- We made another trip to PetSmart tonight to get a flexi-leash in the hopes that we can make it to the beach in the morning. And he loooovesd getting a cookie from the cashier, taking it ever so nicely from her hand when she told hin “Nice”.