Having multiple dogs isn’t too hard most of the time because they all do all the things at the same time (more or less) but one thing I try to remind myself to do is spend time with each of them on their own. When Rumor was a puppy he went almost everywhere with Ryder. He’d go to class on his own but that was about it. The first time I remember taking him out in public by himself there was a statue of a dog and I watched my happy carefree weirdo melt into a puddle and realized he had very little confidence to work through things with just me without Ryder there as backup. I think having an older more experience/more confident dog around to help guide puppies in the way of the world is hugely helpful but I also want my puppies to look to me for support when they are unsure of things. Typically Rugby gets the most one of one time because we train the most, and are back in classes together. But Ryder and Rumor don’t get nearly as much, and Ryder definitely more than Rumor. Last year I started dock diving with Rumor as “our thing” since Ryder didn’t want to jump but now Rugby has the bug too so he will be coming to the dock diving events.
This week a friend invited me to go for a walk with her at a local recreational area after we got off work on Friday. The boys and I don’t tend go on a lot of walks in the neighborhood since there have been multiple incidents with off leash dogs. I decided to bring Ryder because I hadn’t been to the particular location at this place for hiking/walking before and he’s the easiest to manage. Ryder loved it. He got both on and off leash time, enjoyed lots of sniffs and even got to romp around in the river a bit. I remember to bring my camera and was able to snag a few halfway decent pictures of my perfect boy.
The weekend was pretty low-key with a week off from classes and no competitions in sight so Saturday Rumor and I went back. We went off in another direction to the part of the trail I’ve been to before that has a nice little water fall. I brought my camera along again and got in some more practice. Rumor is particularly difficult to photograph because his face is black and he’s twitchy which means most of my photos of him are out of focus. For this reason, Rumor has the least experience with the camera of any of my dogs. Overall he did pretty well and I was able to get a few clear-ish pictures of my boy.
Not to be left out, I decided to take another trip back out to the same place with Rugby today but we took yet another trail. Rugby loved it. This particular trail was right along the river and he enjoyed racing along the beach and then back on the trail in a big loop. We used it as a great opportunity to work on recalls and switching between on leash and off leash. After his spending most of 2019 on leash because of his injury, I particularly love watching him zoom around off leash. His recalls were great, as was his on leash walking. We have some work to do with our off leash walking in terms of staying with me. He’ll wait if I ask him to, but as soon as I verbally release him from his recall he zooms away.
Perhaps my favorite part of all three of these walks, was the absence of other people (except my friend who was with me on Friday). We saw people on our drive in and again on our drive out but no one while we were actually walking which was AMAZING!
Radical Canines 
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