Teddy’s Report from Summer Camp

Dearest Teddy went away for about ten days to the service dog version of summer camp while the rest of the family went on vacation. He spent some time with the founder of Hero Dogs, was the Guest of Honor at a Hero Dogs picnic, then spent time with another Hero Dogs person. The change in scenery, people, locations, dogs, personalities, does a young dog good. It helps the dog learn to roll with the changes instead of being thrown by changes. It's a great idea for every young dog to develop this resilience, but especially important for a service dog. By all accounts, Teddy had a grand time on his vacation and nothing threw him for a loop.

Teddy's been a little fresh with my dogs. He's taken a rawhide out of Nemo's mouth, he's relentless in his play with Nemo, he barges into the water dish even if another dog is already there, he'll grab hold of a tug toy even if two other dogs are playing with it, AND he's been humping them as well.

Teddy needed to spend some time with some dogs and people who weren't pushovers. Who would show him very appropriately where the line was and tell him (appropriately) when he'd stepped even one little paw over that line. If you give Teddy an inch, he'll take a mile. Or two.

Thankfully, the Hero Dogs dog-sitter has three Corgis. If anyone'll keep Teddy in line, it'll be the Corgi's! They're little, but they're feisty! Sure enough, the dog-sitter said the Corgi's did their job and showed Teddy exactly where that line was and told him if he crossed it!

He's gotten bigger in the ten days he spent at camp! I'll be getting some new pictures up soon. We're in the middle of a kitchen renovation, though, so if the background of some of the pictures looks like we live in an abandoned house, you'll know why.

While Teddy was at camp, he seems to have graduated into some other new (and not so pleasant) behaviors. He's back to humping everything again (toys, his bed, people, the dogs), and he's started the delightful habit of counter surfing. I'll take care of the humping by simply removing the toy, dog, bed, leg the instant Teddy starts to even think about humping it! The counters – well that's easy: we don't have any right now! Our kitchen is completely bare. No floor, no stove, no dishwasher, no counters. Nothing. So there's nothing to surf. Hopefully since he can't counter surf here, that nasty behavior will go away because he won't have a chance to practice it!