Trey and I go to the park

Friday after work I went into my room to change and saw Trey doing this:

haha...I took it as a hint and got him ready to go to the park. It was quite the eventful trip to the park...of course it was...do I ever have trips that are un-eventful? Very rarely.

Unfortunately Fortunatley I do not have pictures of what I am about to talk about as it might have been one of the dumbest ideas I have come up with. ever. in my entire life.

So, some of you may or may not know that, for the time being, Travis has moved back to Price to go to school for welding. It has been really rough finding a job down here so we decided it would be best. That being said, I am now making trips to the park alone with Trey. When Trav and I would take Trey to the park, we would bring his ball and play fetch with him so he is able to really run around and kinda strech out. I never worried about taking him off of his leash because Travis was there and he listens to me, but I have to admit (hopefully Travis doesnt read this...he can't know that I am admitting to this :)) that he definitely listens to Travis. Travis definitely is the pack leader in Trey's eyes so it only takes him one time to tell Trey something it might take me 2 or 3 times to tell him, unless it is shake, other one, sit, or high five, you know...the important stuff. Anyway, so here we are at the park. With the ball to play fetch, and our retractable leash and I'm contemplating letting him off of the leash without Trav so we can play fetch. I look around and see 1) TWO soccer games going on, 2) At least 10 other dogs walking with their owners, and 3) 96 kids at the skate park. I decide that I should keep Trey on his leash. He's just a little too friendly for all of the action going around.

I still wanted to play fetch because he needs his excersize. He is a dog. He needs to be able to run around and play. So, here comes idea numero uno. Why don't I just sit on the bench and throw the ball about 20 feet out, where I will be able to keep him on his retractable leash, and he will be able to still run out and get it? That will be perfect...it's a win win situation :).

We played that game for approximately 5 minutes before Trey gave me a look like really? Are you kidding..you want me to run for 5.4 seconds to get a ball and bring it back? C'mon now...

This is where idea number two comes into play. I decided that I still shouldnt take him off of his leash so what I was going to do planning on doing was throwing his ball as far as I could, like we usually do, and let his leash retract while I am, in the meantime, running along with him to get his ball.

Sounds like a fantastic idea, right?

Wrong.

Apparently dogs run at speeds much, much, MUCH faster than Jessica's running speed. (This proves that I can only run 12mph on a treadmill, when forced...but that's another story in and of itself)

The result: Jessica continuing to have a death grip on Trey's leash, knowing she is not making enough steps to keep up with Trey, and falling down about 1/3 of the way to the ball.

Unfortunately Trey is a trooper and CONTINUED to go for his ball, dragging me along. haha. That was definitely the first and last time we will try that trick. I am sure the soccer kids got a kick out of that one.

After that, I figured I have used all of my resources and that I am just going to trust Trey off of the leash. He listens to me, don't get me wrong...but you always have to worry when there is just so much going on.

So, we continue on our walk through the park.

Stop at what seems to be doggie marking domain heaven.

and start fetch off of the leash. It (thank goodness) went very well. He was distracted by other dogs a few times but they would come and say hi and he would get over it and we would get back to fetch.

One time I threw it and he ran (very quickly) to go get it and stopped all of a sudden, looking kinda confused. I'm thinking...what is he doing?

I catch up to him and this is what we are both staring at:

Yeah, that's his ball. In the middle of the river in the park.

Trey has NEVER willingly gone into any sort of water. (Yes, he tries to fight the water coming from the hose, and I do lift his 47lb body into the tub) He looked at the ball for a few minutes, really confused. Finally after me telling him to go get it, he decided to give it a shot. He did the following pose, in combination with pawing at the water for about 5 minutes before actually getting in.
After he finally got in, he loved it!! It was hard to get him out of the water! In fact, he acted like he owned the place after about 10 minutes. He wasn't down with the idea of sticking his face down in the water to get his ball so again, confused look. He would try to move it around with his paw but realized it wasn't going anywhere OUTSIDE of the water. It was a pretty awesome experience. I had to keep saying "Trey! Get your ball buddy :)" Everytime I said that, he would move it a little closer to my reach, finally we got it under control and I was able to pick it up out of the water and we were back in business. After we got home, I started a *project and Trey slept. It was a fun day, minus the bruises on my leg from the fall and slide. ;)

*I will post about this next.