Wordless Wednesdays: Brothers and Best Buds

A Day in the Life

6:57 am: practice commands

7:09 am: favorite time of the day #1

7:11 am: post-breakfast happy dance

7:17 am: harass the cat

7:18 am: forcefully stopped from previous task; chew time

8:58 am: class #1

10:31 am: water break

10:35 am: gone for walk; ignored dead mouse

10:46 am: found some stairs

11:00 am: class #2

12:30 pm: going home

12:49 pm: waiting for Hannah to put her stuff away

12:54 pm: second favorite time of the day

12:56 pm: post-lunch happy dance

1:03 pm: raid toy bucket

1:42 pm: locked up

3:43 pm: released from the box

4:16 pm: FINALLY!

5:09 pm: water break

 
5:32 pm

5:45 pm: threw temper tantrum in dressing room because he refused to "down." You can see who won that battle

6:37 pm: third favorite time of the day

6:39 pm: post-dinner happy dance

8:35 pm: pre-bedtime nap

Introducing...

WARNING!  There are many, MANY extremely cute photos to follow.  Continue at your own risk.

Moray arrived this morning!  I woke up at 6am, an hour before my alarm was to go off.  Really? I thought, I really did want to sleep as long as I could.  I check my email, etc., before checking Moray's flight status from Atlanta.  On time!  Okay, maybe I check it several times and watch it change from "on time," to "boarding," and finally "in transit."

My mom, sister and I arrived  a few minutes after the plane landed, so we had about a ten minute wait for them to bring him over. 

The first thing I said was "He is so tiny!"  You forget how little they are because they grow so darn fast!

Moray with my mom

After a few cuddles, it was time to go outside and try to Hurry.  Moray decided that there is allotta world out there he has got to see first, and chose to explore the parking lot and chew his leash a little first.  ;-)

He finally did Hurry.  It surprised me that he went right on the concrete AND with a toy in his mouth!

Maybe this is TMI, but this is a dog blog for crying out loud ;-)

 Moray is so fearless and independent.  When Dante came he was so "lost" for a week or so before he settled in, so to see Moray's spunk coming out already is a lot of fun.

On our way home

Once home, it was time to introduce him to Dante.  Dante did really well with him and the two played for a little while.

Bath time, food, a few minutes of play, and Moray was out for a while.

This toy is becoming somewhat of a tradition.  It was Dante's favorite when he was little so we had to get one for Moray as well.

Moray woke up after about an hour, we had a little more play time outside, and he is currently serenading me from his kennel.  He will settle down just fine soon enough.  

Welcome home, little buddy!  We have quite the adventure ahead of us!

The crate.  Before Dante came my mom and I spent a lot of time trying to find one that would work.  the one that we ended up with is nice and sturdy and has a door on three sides or it.  Yeah, it sounds like a good idea - you don't have to worry about where you put it and where it will fit as much because it can be accessed from the short or long sides.  Typically, we only use the door on the short side (right of this photo).  

The other day, I was working with Dante on his "kennel" command and using all sides of it.  I must not have latched the doors, but just let them swing shut.  Well, later that day another member of my family put Dante in his kennel, latched his normal door and shut my bedroom door.  You probably figured out what happened, right?  Yeah.  This has happened once before, but my bedroom door was not shut, so Dante came running out three minutes later.  Not this time.  He was in there for an hour-and-a-half.  By himself.  Unsupervised.  Thankfully there wasn't much that he could get into unless he jumped on the bed, and nothing was out of place (even the trash was untouched).  He was just laying in the middle of the floor asleep when we found him.  Moral of the story: don't buy a crate with so many doors unless you are SURE all but one will be inaccessible.  But still, even though we hit a rough spot in his behavior, there still are days that I have faith that he'll make it in this service dog gig!

So Long, Crate!

Yes, I am just now sending back Dante's little crate he flew here in.  I really should have sent it back over a month ago.

I had set up Dante's wire crate in the house and moved this one to my car, so I wouldn't have to keep moving it back and forth.  And I kind of forgot about it.  I keep telling myself that at least I am getting it done before his five month birthday on Saturday.  But I have no excuses.

I am a sentimental person, and so I had to pull this up:  my first ever picture of Dante at the cargo pick-up in the airport:

Dante helped me take it apart and clean it.  He even tried it out one last time.

Dante all hunched over in his little crate.

I love his face in this picture!  This is Dante 110%

He was very interested in the hose, and loved when I sprayed it on his paws.

Trying to figure out why his crate is flooded.

 I tethered him so he couldn't reach it while I actually cleaned it, and he was not too happy that he could not play in the soapy water.  

As you can see, he is laying all the way at the end of his leash

Ahh, he's growing up.