Monday Fun Day: Sauvie Island

I might have mentioned previously how much Sadie digs the water.  I might have even mentioned how she gets a little overworked in the car when she can first smell the water.  I might not have emphasized the extent of this water obsession of hers.  Her water obsession turns my otherwise well-behaved, first to come when any of the dogs are called, gal into spazoid puppy.  OCD-type spaz.  My dog needs to be on Prozac spaz.  OK, you get the point.

For Monday Fun Day this week, I took Sadie & Hurley down to the Sauvie Island beaches just North of Portland.  This is one of our favorite spots to take the dogs but it can get crowded so we generally stay away on weekends and super hot days.  I had originally intended just to bring Sadie to have a mano y perro day like Maggie and I had last week.  But I also felt bad that Hurley has not had the opportunity to exorcize his puppy demons energy while he healed from his surgery.  The incisions were all healed, redness & swelling gone (thanks to an herbal salve I applied during the healing process, PalDog's Boo Boo Gel) and stitches were disolved.  He was officially cleared for take-off.

So off I took Sadie & Hurley.

We could focus on the negative:  Sadie tearing away from me in the parking lot, ripping the leash out of my hand and hauling a** down to the river; Sadie not completely coming to me when I called her for the entire hour and a half we were there; both of them pooping in the river right in front of other people; both of them pulling me into the river when I attempted to have them sit calmly in front of me while another dog came over.

But I prefer to focus on the positive (and resolve to spend a lot more one on one time with Sadie at the beach so we can fix some of these oops-did-i-forget-i-knew-any-commands-water-is-awesome-i-love-water-water-water-water afternoons moments):

Hurley and I practiced his recall and he did fairly well.  Not 100% but definite progress in a distracting environment (and better than I thought he would do!);

Sadie did respond to my calls by coming back towards me (and then shooting off the other way...but we're not focusing on the negatives, right?);

The point was to give both of them a great afternoon and though I spent most of it frustrated, they certainly had a great time.  Sadie did not stop swimming back and forth in front of me the entire time.  Hurley got brave enough to wade in all the way to his chin but enjoyed spending most of his time "guarding" the beach from Sadie. This video pretty much sums it up; back and forth, back and forth.

And truth be told, if the beach had been a little less crowded (3 groups of people close enough to us that I spent much of the time worrying if the dogs were disturbing them and making sure Sadie & Hurley didn't run up in their business), I would have let Sadie swim her crazies out and worked more on obedience after she was a bit worn out.  But the beach was getting a little more crowded so I elected to wrap things up and vowed to spend a little more quality time with her on a future Monday Fun Day.