July 31, 2015

Today was the toughest A.J. day we’ve had in a while. Greg and I went for a bike ride. Before we left we did our usual house check, making sure sure the counter tops were clear and the garbage cans put away. I gave A.J. a treat, and we left. I forgot my sunglasses and had to go back in. I don’t like to do that, I don’t want to stress or excite A.J. by coming right back and leaving again, but I needed my sunglasses. So I came in, grabbed my sunglasses, gave A.J. another treat, and we left.

When we got back I heard A.J. outside when I was pulling into the garage. I put my bike away and went into the house, and A.J. still hadn’t come in. That’s when I noticed the mess in middle of the living room floor. I had left half a granola bar in the front pocket of my backpack, then left my backpack where A.J. could get to it. The backpack had been there for two days without incident, but today A.J. decided breakfast and two treats wasn’t enough, he needed the granola bar. He completely destroyed the pocket of my backpack getting to it. I liked that backpack.

The temperature reached the upper 90s today. Because the high temperatures of the day don’t hit until 6 or 7 PM, A.J. doesn’t get an evening walk on these days. So to try to keep him from going crazy I took him out into the shade and tried to work with him on some of his tricks and commands. He wasn’t doing nearly as well as usual, so I stopped and threw his tennis ball into his pool a few times to cool him off. We tried the tricks again, and he did a little better. Then I put him in a “Stay,” which he’s always really good with. I had put some treats on the ground that he could get when I released him to go over a small jump. But I left him in his stay for a few seconds and instead of having him jump right away I started to sit down. A.J. got up and went and got the treats. He hasn’t broken a Stay in ages.

So we did a 10 minutes Stay. It was going to be three minutes, but he broke it twice and we had to start over.

Definitely not one of A.J.’s best days. We’re going on a longer bike ride tomorrow, hopefully he manages to stay out of trouble for a few hours.