Mozart is a very active puppy, he is like an energizer bunny just going and going and going. With everything that is going on during the week days Mozart only gets about 1.5 hours of exercise 30 min in the morning, 30 min during lunch time and 30 min in the evening. During walks we do short sprints in the grass or up the grassy hill. We also play ball in the house few min here and there. All this is just enough to take the edge of Mozart's desire to be busy. So on the weekends I am trying to do a bit more with him.Unfortunately I've been sick since the day before puppies were born and still dragging my feet around and by the time I finally got ready to get out of the house I didn't have enough time to do what I wanted to do. When my obedience instructor teaches puppy kindergarten classes she gives a paper that called "Treasure hunt", this paper has a list of things that should be done as part of puppy socialization. We've been checking some things off that list but we still had lots left. One of the things I had been wanting to get to for a while is "meet a goose". I took Mozart and we went to Rio - this is an area nearby that has a pond with ducks and Geese, restaurants, people, kids and dogs. To my huge disappointment all the geese were too far in the water so Mozart couldn't really see them. I really should have done this a while ago when Mozart was much smaller, I wanted to see what his reaction would be when he sees the huge bird, now I am sure all he would want to do is to chase it.
As we couldn't find any geese, we just went to walk around the pond. Mozart got to greet and get petted by a few people, so we got at least something out of this. Then I had decided to try my luck in the office park where I work. I was always full of geese and was only half a mile away. I guess it wasn't our day to meet the geese as usually there are tons of them there, but today there was not a single one inn sight. I guess they had a day off, maybe they have the same schedule Mon - Fri. Then I had another idea, another thing on our list was "to ride on the elevator". So I thought I can take Mozart on our elevator on the weekend, I bet no one would object to it. But I didn't have any luck either. The building is closed on the weekends and I didn't have my security card to open the door, and I didn't see any of the cars that belong to the people I work with, so they could let me into the building:-(
Although we didn't get to scratch anything off my list, we still did about 1 worth of walking around and seeing new places, but it was time to go and pick up Charlotte from her Russian school. Ha, one thing I can actually do! We live in a townhouse that has first floor, second floor and the basement. Mozart lives on the main floor. I do not want him to go up the stairs so I never encouraged it . I didnt really wanted him in the basement because we have bunch of stuff laying around and with his constant desire to chew on things I was worried that he might find something that he shouldn't have eaten. Today, however, I decided to take him down the stairs, we had walked up and down the stairs before, but last time it was about 3 weeks ago and Mozart refused to go down or up the stairs today. I did convince him to make a trip, so I was planning on taking him up and down the stairs where Charlotte goes to her Russian school. There is a good size stairwell outside the building and I was was planning on using it. We walked up and down the stairs a couple of times, so I felt that I had accomplished at least something today.
The weather today was absolutely beautiful and I just didn't want to get stuck at home for the rest of the day, so I asked the kids if they would like to go to the playground. The kids were very happy, but I had ulterior motive. Since this morning I wanted to go to the play ground so Mozart could practice his "long down". you can read about "long down" here.. We went last Saturday and I wanted to get back to it.
The goal of the "long down" is to have dog to lay quietly by your side for 30 consecutive minutes. Knowing that I have kids with me, I figured I have about an hour before they will get bored and will want to go home. I also was pretty sure that I will not get 30 min out of Mozart in that timeframe, but I figured it;s better than nothing. Yes, ideally someone should sit in that chair as long as it takes to get 30 min out of their dog, but lets be realistic. I would probably need to spend 3 hours sitting in that chair before I get those 30 min under conditions with so many distractions. I do not have 3 hours, so if I were to shoot for this goal I would simply give up and say "Oh well, maybe some other time I will have the time needed". I think it's better to go and get what you can, and then work on gradually increasing the time, than get discouraged and quit. My main rule when doing the long down is: " never stop the exercise when the dog is sitting. If you spent an hour and finally your dog went down, but then right before you were about to get up the squirrel ran by and the dog is standing again, I would wait for as long as it takes to make sure the dog goes down again, then I will finish the exercise.
I brought a camping chair, a book to read and a rug for Mozart to lay on so he doesn't have to do it on the cold ground. I have to say that the camping chair is really bad for doing the long downs, because the leash would simply slid under me, so I had to secure it to prevent Mozart from moving farther and farther away from me. I really want to stress that doing the long down in a camping chair is really really bad idea. If I had a larger dog that wanted to take off after something, I would not be able to stop the dog form doing it. The only reason I was able to get away with it was Mozart's size and I think I will have to come up with something else for the next time. The main goal for doing the long down near the playground is to make Mozart get used to the sound of the screaming children and teach Mozart to relax when bunch of them are running and screaming.
I put my chair right across from the tire swing. I do not know how kids can stand it, I get dizzy just by looking at it, but it sure was providing plenty of screaming:-) As soon as I sat in the chair Mozart got comfortable on the rug, but as expected the lasted for maybe 30 sec. A kid ran by kicking a soccer ball and Mozart was ready to chase it. Then a person with a dog went by and Mozart was ready to go and visit them. Every time Mozart would go down, 30 sec later something would happen that would cause him to jump up.
Finally as the hour was wearing off, he became more relaxed. I maybe got 5-10 min of him doing down, but I saw that he was mentally exhausted from all that commotion around him and was getting closer to started to tune it out. Also, as expected, the kids came and told me that they are bored and ready to go home. Hmm, maybe next time I will try to organize a play date for them at the playground, to give myself more time. Although, we didn't get even close to the 30 min goal, I felt that we made a lot of progress, will try to go back next weekend if weather permits.
Mozart was really tired because as soon as we got into the car he was asleep. But two hours later when he came out of his crate he was crazy as if he was locked up the whole day!
