The last few days

1. It has begun.

2. We had a cookout on Saturday for the folks at John’s lab. One of the guys looked just like Cooper’s agility trainer. Remember the guy Cooper HATED? Well, he definitely had some sort of associative flashback, so he spent the night on leash instead of terrorizing this poor guy and, eventually, we had to put Cooper in the bedroom. I looked online at the training facility where we tried taking those agility classes. They have a reactive dog class at the end of July. I’m going to email her and ask if the agility trainer can be one of the “distractions,” and if so, we’re signing up!

3. At the same cookout, Petey got some serious socialization! She had so much fun playing with everyone’s shoelaces and running around being a silly girl. Everyone was shocked at how well she and Cooper played together. I have a bunch of video that I’ll share later in the week. She did get a little frisky with our good friend Matt…

4. If you’ve been following along on Instagram, you’ve probably noticed a trend: These two are inching ever closer. I think they’re gearing up for a snuggle! At the least, they’ve let their guards down completely, and I’m so proud of them.

5. Finally, sigh. Dear Emmett. We’ve been getting a ton of rain. I think that’s typical during the summer here – crazy hot and humid days followed by intense thunderstorms in the early evening. Because of that, our backyard floods every couple of days, which means the edge of the pond moves further into the yard. Which means the toads do, too. When Emmett spies a Harris, he has a distinct chase – it’s very start-and-stop as he tries to figure out which way Harris is jumping. When we see that, we try “leave it” or redirect him. So, Friday night, he trotted off, froze, then stuttered side to side – clearly indicating a toad. John said, “leave it.” And Emmett totally FAKED a leave it. He stopped chasing. He turned to walk back to where I was sitting, but dipped his head at the last second. If we weren’t both looking, we would’ve missed it. John shines the flashlight on him, and he’s jaunting across the yard, carrying a poor, terrified Harris by his back foot. The toad was just dangling out of his mouth as Emmett attempted to carry him away. Rest assured, John rescued Harris and he was uninjured and returned to the fenced-in part of the pond.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend! We have a week of packing ahead of us – fun stuff – and keep an eye out on Facebook! I have received a few boxes of product samples that I’m going to give away throughout the week (less to move!). Happy Monday!