Rain conditioning

 Aware that dogs can be bothered by thunder, lightning and rain, I took advantage of Tuesday morning's showers to show Ember that rain is not scary.  See?  Mom can take your food dish out on the deck and reward you for coming to me in the rain.  It's not scary, it's just water coming from the sky!

Besides that, when you come back inside, you get to play the "paw check" game, to make sure you still have four paws and get you rubbed down with the towel.  Ember loves that towel, and her bunny!

Tuesday morning Mommy learned that Ember has a very hard head, especially when she launches herself from three steps up in a very enthusiastic response to "come".  OUCH!  Right in the kisser!

I almost despair of getting her to leave my feet/shoes alone, particularly in the early morning when she's really hungry.  We go outside and she pulls on my laces and gnaws at my heels.  She already destroyed one pair of old running shoes.  She's got a good start on the second.  

"Let go", "leave it", "drop it"... I'm not being effective.  We've tried calm English "leave mommy's shoes alone", "you have to let Mommy do what she needs to do", etc.  Persistence.  The worst mistake would be giving up.  Like so many things in life, patience, tolerance, persistence, and consistency are all required.

Ember:  Tuesday was workout with the trainer day for Mom.  After she got home and we went out for a little ball chasing, we tried a trip in the car to pick up mom's prescription at the drive thru.  Mom was trying out a dog seatbelt that should attach to my harness, but that harness is still on order, has not yet arrived.  

Mom tried hitching it to my leash, on the shorter loop.  This was a fail. There was enough "rope" to climb into the front seat, and then it was stretching it, so it was not a good thing for a puppy.

Back to Mom:  I pulled into the grocery parking and readjusted how we had her attached, attaching the short "seatbelt" directly to her collar, instead.  She wasn't particularly happy about it, but I kept tossing treats back to her, and we survived the trip without any tummy upsets.

A big girl leash-walk up and down the block, and we were ready to nap.  I let her nap just on the floor while I was in the reclining couch, and I kind of nodded off a bit, too.

By the time she woke up, it was nearly 80 degrees outside.  She was not much into outdoor exercise, but we did get the bathroom needs taken care of.  I felt a little bad putting her into her den about 3 p.m. given she had slept away a lot of her "out of crate" time, but I ignored her complaints just so I could have some human time, unworried about her safety.

The culinary ventures today included a cucumber slice (she had one yesterday, and liked it, so today was another), and part of my cooked eggs.  

I know that most physicians are not fond of Dr. Google, but I wonder how vets think about all those lists of "human foods that are / are not safe for dogs".  I think back to stories my mom told about her dog Deuce.  They adopted him from another family and could not get him to eat dog food, so they asked the family that had him before.

"He's always just had table scraps," they responded, so pretty much back then, it was "give it a try" and trust the dog's instinct to not eat something that will make him sick?

That's about it from here.  It's time to load the snuffle mat and let Ember have a different kind of puzzle to end her day.

Life is good.  Spark on!