Water Pups

Tessie and Skippy have been having a great summer (even though we're only a week or so in).  We've been taking 30-60 minute walks in the afternoon, which they absolutely love...and sometimes they're lucky enough to get a second walk when Dad gets home!  As I think I mentioned in the previous blog, they both are so well-behaved when I am home with them compared to when I come home after being gone all day.  Granted there's not much we can do about that once the school year begins but for now it's working out really well.

They both continue to do really well with their training, socialization, etc.  Tessie's new bad habit is barking when she sees a dog.  She does this completely out of excitement because she wants to play with every dog she sees.  However, she comes across s

ounding a little psycho so we bought a training collar last week at puppy class that has really been helping her.  Skippy goes up to people who come to the house now, sniffs them, and typically lets people pet him.  Tessie's still a bit shy with people but is making so many huge strides from when we got her in March.  We see a huge difference in her when we go to puppy class especially.  She loves playing with the dogs now, especially Odell, a Golden Retriever I mentioned in the last post.  I think she knows other Retrievers because she definitely seems to be more excited when she sees one compared to other dogs.  A few weeks ago I had Animal Planet on and a special about Flat-coat Retrievers came on.  She sat right up and watched the tv for quite a few minutes.

Last weekend the puppies took their first pool swim.  Neither one was very thrilled with it but they both did a great job swimming!  Tessie is a splasher.  She kind of flails when she swims and makes a lot of splashing because her legs are so long.  Skippy looks like a little wind-up toy dog when he swims.  No splashing and he moves pretty quickly for a little guy.  Towards the end of the afternoon there were a few times where Tessie looked a little curious about jumping in but she didn't.  I think if she had an area that sloped in like she would at a lake or ocean, she might have ventured in on her own.  It's a start!  There will be a lot of exposure to water for these puppies over the summer so we will be interested to see how they do with it.  There are more swimming pictures on my flickr stream.