This is the story of Gemini's Leo the Lionhearted "Leo" and Gemini's Th Blacker Th Berry Th Sweeter Th Juice "Juicy." Leo was born February 28, 2009 and Juicy was born March 11, 2011. Leo is currently competing in CPE and AKC agility as well as training for an obedience career. Juicy, too, recently began training in agility and as she matures will get certified as a therapy dog in order to visit children in hospitals. Both dogs have wonderful temperaments, exemplary of their breed.
Leo has graduated from Petsmart's Basic Obedience class! On Monday night Zach and Leo finished their eighth week of class and graduated. They will be moving on to another obedience class and we now have a goal ahead of us. Leo is an attentive learner who really wants to please. While he could definitely do with less desire to be with "the mom" and focus on his current handler, he is trying and starting to come around.
Leo can run! During baseball practice yesterday evening and during a several hour stretch without rain (Yay!), the dogs, Zach, and I headed to the dog park. Leo loves the park and spends time alternately chasing the big dogs and just sniffing around the perimeter independently. Yesterday a lot of people took advantage of the temporary reprieve in rain and dogs came and went the whole time we were at the park. Leo hung around with Zach and I quite a bit, intermittently meeting and checking out new dogs.
When Omar showed up, a Bulldog, he and Leo took an interest in each other. Before I knew it, this is what was going on:
One would have thought Leo would have been tired last night. Of course being the little "midgey" dog that he is, that wasn't the case. Nonetheless, he ate a good dinner after having so much fun.
In addition to his crazy zoomies, we spent some time doing some obedience work in the park. We're fortunate Leo is so good about behind handler focused. We worked on sits, downs, staying, and coming. People in the park were pretty impressed - as was I - that he could focus at all in such an environment.
