Who's a Good Boy? Larry Is!

Larry let me sleep until the alarm went off at 6:15 this morning. I have to say I was surprised and delighted. He was certainly surprised, but not all that delighted. He had no idea what the noise was. It was actually a pretty good and funny way to immediately start the day, especially since I'm not a morning person at all.

We did wade out into about 4 or 5 inches of new snow, but luckily, he loves the snow. Good thing for an Erie dog. He doesn't like when the little snow balls accrete on the fur on his legs and undercarriage, but he doesn't worry about that until we're back inside the apartment stairwell. I can help him pick it off then.

But back to last night. The only minor damage he did in the kitchen was he knocked a paper off of the refrigerator and shredded it a bit. Not little pieces, but shredded. Oddly, it was the housebreaking sheet that Helen gave me! I don't know what that means about his opinion of it, but I sure liked it. Luckily I have a copy saved and I've pretty much memorized the sheet anyhow.

We went out for a decently long walk in the snow right after work and he made an enemy. Well, he didn't do it, but the other dog didn't like him. We met a Boston Terrier at the dumpsters (the throwing away poo gathering place of the apartment complex). The owner of the Boston was a really nice guy, but his dog didn't like Larry at all. Actually might have clipped him on the nose. So that was a bummer. But then right after, Larry met a new girlfriend...Clementine. She's a black standard poodle who's a giant compared to him. But they really liked each other. They were even playing in the snow (on leash) together. Clementine is a well-trained dog. She immediately listened to her owner's commands, though Larry made her break from sit a lot. No shame there. Clementine's owner thought Sir Lawrence was about the cutest dog in the world. And of course, around strangers, he's on his absolute best behavior. No jumping or anything. I was well pleased.

We did two training sessions where I mostly concentrated on getting him to do "down" just by voice. He's having some problems with it, but he'll get there. Mainly, I'm just tired of bending.

Now the bad news was that on our pre-bedtime walk, I fell. This was inevitable. They don't salt, cinder, or dirt the parking lot where the dumpsters are, so the snow turns into an icy hardpack. Luckily, we had already disposed of the poo, but sure enough, I did a slo-mo tumble. Right foot went back and kept on going back. Knee down and then hand down. Luckily, the leash was in my left hand, so I never lost control of him. The good news is that there was only a slight nick on my knee and no soreness today at all. Could have been a lot worse. I just hope that I'm this lucky when the inevitable next tumble happens.