Buddy's first trip to the beach

Here is buddy on his first trip to the off-leash beach. He wasn't too keen on getting his feet wet today. But we are hoping that once he gets used to the surf that he will go in a bit further.

We try to give Buddy a good balance of off-leash and on-leash exercise. At most off-leash parks and beaches there are other dogs to play with so it is good chance to socialize too.

As you can see from the photo, Butterscotch really loves his ball!

Dog Toys

Making sure that Buddy had his own toys was a good idea. He has a little collection of about 6 things and we rotate which ones we leave out for him. Usually on any given day 5 toys will be lost under the couch. We also gave him a decoy shoe, an old sandal that belonged to the kids. But he prefers recently worn shoes, and can often be found asleep with his head inside an ugg boot.

We are encouraging the kids to play with toys with the dog, rather than play wrestling games, which can give dogs the wrong idea about acceptable ways of interacting with humans.

Buddy loves playing fetch, and will fetch a ball, his toy fire hydrant or his toy shoe. He is a very intelligent dog and learned to fetch and return in about 5 minutes! He also loves Mr Squeaky, and will sleep on his or play tug-of-war with him.

Training Buddy

The dog trainer at the Dog Training Club that we belong to says that every dog should have one good trick. Buddy's trick is to dance on his back legs. But in this photo he got a bit too excited by the training treats (bits of cheese) - he loves cheese so much that is actually air borne here!

These dogs are very smart. It took about half an hour to teach Buddy to fetch a ball and return it. It took him about 5 minutes to learn to sit. I have had other dogs that never learned to do these simple tasks.

So we think Buddy is a pure genius!