Quick Sniff Blogging

Well I took yesterday off, so I spent most of both days with the Tobsters. Yesterday after we'd gotten up and eaten I took him off to the track for a run before it go too hot. (It was supposed to get into the 80s and did). Throughout the day we toyed around in the house and had him help get the laundry to the basement. We also did a few 'teeter' sessions on my makeshift board.

Today he had a quick morning stroll before I had to leave to go grocery shopping. Afterwards though we did some obedience work and more stuff on the teeter board this afternoon. It was in the 50s, with a ton of wind! Gotta love Michigan weather. Tonight however, I wanted to take him somewhere he could really stretch his legs. The track is a good, close to home solution during the busy week... but it also gets 'boring'. So we went to the Leila Arboretum here... it's this huge garden area, with tons of biking/jogging paths woven all over a set of mowed fields. Little spurts of forest areas and gazebos and so on. A nice place... but too many people use it as an off leash dog park (against the park's rules) so we never went before. Well I figured it was going on seven, getting cold out... it wouldn't be too busy tonight. So off we went.

It was rather quiet... a wonderful place to walk! I was a bit worried when we got there... one being that I'd just made a car drive on some busy roads for the first time by myself. I'm terrified of driving... so every little step counts! And secondly because there was an off leash dog running around - and Toby is on-leash reactive, sometimes even aggressive even though that's rarer these days. But they left shortly after we got there and it was so quiet I turned him loose on his 20ft and let him go. I was a little skeptical when for the first five minutes he didn't so much as glance in my way. But in the middle of a really good smell, just as I was thinking that it'll probably be a good half hour before he checks in, he jerked his head up and whipped around to look at me. Yes! From then on out he checked back in frequently. Good boy! I was so proud.

I let him jog around and hike up some hills for an hour before heading home. He's not quite exhausted but he's satisfied. Now to figure out where to take him tomorrow... Finding good places just isn't easy around here.