Benjamin on the way home from the dog park. Look at that dirty face! You can tell he had a good time.
I must say I really like having a dog park so close to the house again. It sure is a lot easier to make a quick trip to the dog park, rather than having to drive about 30 minutes to get there. We get to squeeze in a lot more visits this way. Yesterday, after we got home from some holiday shopping, we loaded up the pugs real quick and headed to the park before it got dark. They had a great time and Solsey was in the mix of everything. She absolutely loves the dog park. I think she has the most fun out of all the pugs.
Saturday we packed up the pugs and went to a new dog park that recently opened in our neighborhood. Luna actually went to the new dog park a week earlier to scope it out and see if it looked like fun before we took the whole crew. Based on Luna's report, we decided it would be fun for all the pugs.
Our mission on Saturday morning was to tire out the pugs, and that includes Solsey, because we knew we had a full day of decorating ahead of us.
We have actually had some trouble lately keeping Solsey from getting bored. She loves her walks, but she physically can't walk far enough to tire out her mind. So we thought a trip to the dog park might provide more of a mental adventure and not tire her out physically as much, as we figured she could find a nice spot to sit and watch the other dogs.
We were actually a little nervous to take Solsey to the park. We weren't sure if she was going to like being there with all the young, playful dogs or exactly how she would react. But we figured, if she didn't like it one of us would take her for a little walk around the dog park and then we could go home. We thought it surely wouldn't hurt to try it once.
When we arrived, the three fawns charged full steam ahead to the dog park entrance, and I stayed behind with Solsey who was taking in all the smells in the parking lot. The girl smells EVERYTHING! A few minutes later we made it to the dog park gate, where we could see the fawns making friends with the other small dogs. I took Sol off her leash & then opened the gate to the small dog area. She trotted in and a few dogs came over to greet her. She greeted them back and then stood there for a second surveying the park with her nose in the air, sniff, sniff, sniffing.
It didn't take her long to spot a bench with two people sitting on it. She made her way over to the bench and was promptly pet by the man on the end. He pet her for a few minutes and when he stopped she moved on down to the woman on the other end of the bench. She got a few more minutes of petting before she ventured out into the park to smell around.
Dogs would come up to her and she would smell them and then she would move on. She didn't seem to mind the dogs running around at all, but you could tell she wasn't there to see the dogs, she was there to see the people.
It wasn't long before she had a woman on the big dog side of the park petting her through the fence. Her experience consisted of smelling around for a bit and then bumping into someone to pet her. Lucky for Sol, dogs continued to arrive and most of them came with two owners. As each new person came to the park, Sol walked over and made sure she got pet.
She made so many friends that day and was so happy to be out doing two of her favorite things, smelling around and getting pet.
I have always known that Sol is pretty unflappable. I have yet to see her in a situation where she gets nervous or anxious, she always has such a calm about her. But, even I thought that the action of the dog park might be too much for her to handle. But she proved, once again, that she can handle pretty much anything. She got everything out of her dog park trip that she wanted. Was she the slowest dog there? By far, but none of that stopped her from enjoying all of her favorite things.
I was so busy watching Sol like a hawk to make sure none of the other dogs got too rough with her that I didn't get many pictures at all. I did get a short little video, and I mean short, of her sauntering around though.
The temps have finally dropped out of the 90's this week and the pugs have been enjoying the low 80's, high 70's weather. However, no one enjoys this kind of weather more than Henry. He pretty much has become a permanent fixture on the lounge chair.
This is the view from behind Solsey's wheels which I must confess she doesn't like nearly as much as I had hoped. Sure, she'll take the ride, but if given the choice between the pouch and the stroller she would choose the pouch every time. Sigh.
We are impatiently waiting for a delivery today. I imagine it will come in a much bigger box than this and that the pugs are going to like it much more than what is in this box.
I primarily ordered it for Sol, but I think all the pugs will get some use out of it and it is really going to come in handy on our long, winter walks when it is perfect pug weather in FL.
So I am hoping it does indeed come today, so we can use it this weekend. What is it? Well, it is an upgrade to Sol's pouch...Solsey's wheels!
I have been organizing my photos, so I have spent a lot of time perusing the picture archives. A lot of those pics are puppy pictures of the boys and when I came across a set of of the boys in the pool at G-Ma & G-Pa's house, I realized that Henry really took to the water as a pup.
Here he is playing aqua fetch. My first thought when I saw this picture is, "He doesn't have a life vest on!" Geez, what kind of mother am I?
And here is is sticking his head underwater. Some things never change.
Whenever I look at puppy pictures of the boys, I can't help but wish that I had pictures of Luna & Sol as pups. Can you just imagine how tiny Luna must have been? And Sol? I can't even imagine what a little baby Sol would be like.
