Come back sunshine!

I hear that, despite the lovely weather today - while we've all been stuck in the office - it's going to be grotty again tomorrow. Surely sunny days can't be too far away?

We had a glimpse of good times to come last weekend when Saturday dawned warm and fair. I've been wanting to go and visit the Butcher and Larder ever since reading about it on Two Pitties blog. I finally got around to it and, given the nice weather we made a little outing of it.

Poor Buster couldn't come because it was going to be too much for his recovering knee (all in all, we were out walking for three and a half hours). It was hard leaving the guy behind, especially as he's getting so frisky these days, a new side to him that's developing as his rehab progresses. Still, we couldn't undo all the good work of a $3000 surgery and four months of slow rehab just because he was pulling puppy eyes and prancing at the door.

On the plus side, that meant we could take Clover, Dogdad's roommate's dog, with us. She definitely enjoyed the outing.

Bilbo gets a treat for good behavior

Despite his size, Billy is surprisingly agile - he's been known to leap from standing to land rock-solid on top of the couch back, which is all of 5 inches wide, not that we'd encourage that behavior... Unfortunately, as he still gets ludicrously worked up when he's around other dogs and not allowed to play with/ jump on them, he can't participate in agility classes. So I improvise and he walks along walls, jumps over park benches and does sit-stays on rocks during our walks. Our route took us just a block away from a little improvised obstacle course that I'd discovered on our way back from a playdate. Billy clearly remembered all the chicken from last time as soon as he saw it and leaped up before we asked, getting tangled in Clover's leash and landing in my arms. Once everyone was back on their feet however, he waited to do as he was told and we snapped a couple of pictures of the pooches.

I'm an old pro at this!

Not to be outdone, Clover soon worked out the plan.

I'm a star!

Hey, is he getting more treats than me?

I've got to admit, though he'll murder me for it, the problem wasn't so much getting the pooches to do as they were told but trying to get Dogdad to stop waving his hands through the frame and confusing them... I suppose everyone does always say that it's the people you have to train first, not the pooches!

Nothing like happy pitbull-on-hot-day face! I had my new Ollydog walking pack with me, which essentially means that all my doggy necessaries (camera, pick-up bags, treats, phone, keys) are close at hand - this includes a nice big bottle of water which these two definitely needed with all the sunshine.

Waiting outside Jewel

While we waited outside the Jewel, a couple of guys actually tried to buy Bilbo from me. Yikes. And yet, I still had to go over and tell a guy who was tying his gorgeous pitbull to the bike rack that it was a very bad idea to leave his dog unattended!

After all that unexpected sunshine I swear Bilbo was still tired out two days later.