Ole goes out to dinner

Ole has been meeting up with Luna the 6 year old German Shepherd and her owners at the park by our house every morning for several weeks now. Luna basically ignores Ole and spends all of their time together making sure Ole doesn't get hold of her favorite ball toy. Her owners use one of those plastic ball launchers to toss the ball for Luna and Ole became enamored of not only the type of ball Luna prefers and the ball launcher. This led me to a shopping trip to Target to get him his own special launcher and ball toys. Big success! Ole is hooked on his new toys. We spend about 30 to 45 minutes in the morning chasing and fetching his ball and at least that much time in the evening. In the PM Elmo and Shelly also participate. Elmo is so fast that a lot of the time he scores the ball before Ole can get to it. Elmo then struts around and proudly brings it back to me and lays it at my feet.
Luna and her family live in Phoenix most of the year but also have a vacation home near us for the summers. It's too hot to even go for a walk in Phoenix in the summer so they really enjoy themselves while they are here. It was 108 degrees there yesterday and only got up to around 72 here. We are so lucky to live in San Diego! Anyway, Ole will have to find a new park fetch play mate until Luna comes back.


Last evening we were invited to a friends home in Elfin Forest for dinner. Elfin Forest is about a 50 minute drive from here and we did not want to leave Ole in the crate for what could easily have been 6-7 hours so we asked if he could come along. They are dog people and said yes. Elmo and Shelly stayed home to guard the roost and chew on bones. Our friends, John and Lee, are currently dog-less so Ole got to be the dog de jour. He was such a good boy, didn't get into anything, didn't jump on anyone or goose any one in the private parts. I'm so proud! I took his new ball and launcher with us and he showed off his fetch skills for about 30 or so minutes when we first got there and that tired him out real well. We were treated to a fresh Maine lobster feast by our friends and he was very good about staying on his towel and chewing on his bone while we feasted. He had a small lapse in manners toward the end of our meal ( came over to John and gave him the" surely you won't be needing ALL of that lobster?" look. I made him go lie down and he settled down and left us to our meal.

This morning Ole and I had our last fetcha thon with Luna and her owners as they are heading off to Phoenix for a while. Ole would chase balls thrown by me but preferred to have Luna's dad throw them for him. Some kind of male bonding thing I guess. Today , Shelly gets a bath and Shelly and Elmo will be assisting in puppy class tonight. Yes, I know it's labor day, but some of us have to labor , not all of us get it off.