Lycan...Sigh...

How can I be mad at this face?

Well, Lycan (really a sweet and wonderful dog...I have to keep reminding myself) has been such a PUNK lately. I am going to attribute it to adolescence, and hope that it is just a stage he is going through, but my goodness, he's been obnoxious the past couple days. Granted, he has not gotten much exercise, but neither have the other two and they have been perfect gentlemen. This morning, he woke me up at 8AM by just randomly whining, which he had been doing for at least 30 mins (I'm not sure because I started to tune him
out). At first I thought that something was wrong, maybe he
was in pain or something, but no, turns out he just wanted me to wake up so I could pet him and scratch his belly. Last night again we had bouts of fidgety anxiety (read: whining, licking my face, climbing into my lap), which turned out to be that he thought I should get up and feed him RIGHT NOW!. Anyways, any way that I can assert my dominance, I jump on, so I waited until he lay down on his bed and stopped bothering me before I fed him. Then, after he had been fed and was resting, when I wanted to pet him, he refused to come over to me for attention. What a jerk! On Tuesday we had his second Therapy dog visit, and while he was fairly good once I took him outside and let him relieve himself, he was just antsy, screamed when I barely put pressure on his foot, and lay down in the middle of the room and flopped around like a fish. He LOVED the interactions with the residents, but got a little preoccupied with all the other dogs around. Next time, I have to remind myself to make sure he gets to run around for a while before taking him in on a visit, and also remember a tired dog is a good dog. I love him dearly, but this must be what having children feels like!

Therapy dog extrordanaire

Today was Lycan's first therapy dog visit. According to the rules of the Delta Society, the group he is registered with, he needs to be bathed no earlier than 24 hours before the visit. So, last night I got him in the tub, cleaned him all up, dried him, brushed him brushed his teeth and trimmed his nails. This morning I brushed him some more, took him to the facility and let him wander around and relieve himself, drink some water, and of course, get his legs all muddy again. After he met the other therapy dog, a lovely chocolate lab named Sequoia, we went into the facility (Timber Ridge assisted living facility), where he met lots of sweet people who were so excited to see him. Now, I have to admit I was NERVOUS! I thought for sure he would do something rotten, like pee on someone's walker, jump on some poor old person, or maybe lick them so much they wouldn't like him. He was such a good boy. We spent about 45 mins letting the residents visit with him, pet him, talk to him etc. He was a little concerned about getting too close to the people, because he had to scootch around walkers and wheelchairs, but all in all, I was very proud. I think in the future he would do better meeting more people instead of seeing the same people over again, and he would do better with no longer than the time we spent, because I noticed him start shedding and licking my face right before we left. That is his signal for being stressed out. So, we need to be mentored one last time and then we are a full Rx: pets visiting team. YAY!