Sunday, May 30, 2010

An Afternoon Walk

Petey and I have been walking a lot lately....want to come along? Here he's doing a good job of sitting and looking up at a branch overhead (sorry, not pictured!)

Petey, a black German shepherd, sitting on the sidewalk next to me and looking up alertly
Here, I'm getting his attention with a treat and "Watch me!" The reason? We're getting ready to pass a little boy...distracting for Petey. He did just great though!
Petey striding along in his blue work jacket, looking up to me as I talk to him and hold a treat up near my face
UNTIL this...which, by the way, was totally my fault! We passed the little boy and I let my guard down, starting to focus on what was coming up. Rats! Of course that was just the moment the boy whipped out a ball and started tossing it up in the air, resulting in the reaction below...

Petey lurching in the opposite direction to how we were going; I've got my feet braced and am bent over to hang onto him
I'll pay closer attention next time! Soon Petey's focus was back on me, and on his work. He knows his stuff pretty well. Here he's sitting right at the edge of the curb...good boy.

Kind of a funny picture of Petey's and my toes right next to each other at the edge of a curb
Here he's finding me a trash can. Good dog!

Petey sits, nose pointing right at a trash can, while I'm smiling, praising him and throwing something away
In the video below, Petey faces down the "goose of doom." In all fairness, I've got to tell you that so far every single dog I've walked in our neighborhood is initially freaked out by this goose lawn ornament. When Petey and I walked up to it at first, he froze...waited a few seconds...(I was talking casually to him, trying to show it wasn't a big deal) and then suddenly sprang back to the end of his lead. So here I'm trying to get him to make friends with the nice goosey but as you can see he's not buying it!

In the end, he was willing to walk past calmly, which is really all he has to do. Good job!
Rear view of Petey's long bushy black tail and paws beside my feet as we walk along together
That's all folks! Happy trails!

4 comments:

Lauren said...

Petey is SO big and handsome! What a good boy- looks like he is doing well with his commands.

Brandon - The dog with a blog said...

I love the pictures of Petey, he is a awesome looking dog! (so is Alfie :)

Sounds like he's doing well,

Rudy's Raiser

Infrequent Flyers said...

Wow, you've made a lot of progress with Petey in just the past couple weeks. Kudos to you!!!

Lisa and pups said...

WOW Petey, you are a quick learner! Way to go! Not long now and you'll be really spectacular! Keep up the pawsome work!