The first place wasn't new: it was the vet's, for her final vaccination booster and rabies shot. The vet was running late, so Cobalt got to experience, for the first time, a cat that will stand up to her. At home, the cats don't care for the puppy's bouncing playfulness, and will quickly retreat to safe spots -- up the cat tree (Mouse) or into the bathroom sink (Grendel). Which is fine, except that Cobalt takes this as chase game.
The vet's cat, on the other hand, has been around dogs forever. He just sat there and ignored Cobalt, which drove her nuts. She was running back and forth, trying to approach the cat from every different direction, but she could not get the chase game started. I think she found it quite frustrating.
After the vet, it was off to Riverdale Park. Riverdale Park has a huge off-leash area in the Don Valley, though we didn't go down there -- we stayed in the more standard part of the park, in the middle of Cabbagetown.
Early in the walk we were struck by how aloof the other dog owners were compared to what we were used to. At Alan Gardens, Moss Park, or High Park, people would be curious about Cobalt, asking about her age, her breed, and so on; but here, at least at first, nothing.
It wasn't until much later in the walk that we encountered a group walking their dogs (big dogs, all of them), who spotted Cobalt and crossed the street to see her. She had a grand time being fawned over and running around with the big dogs. Shortly thereafter an elderly lady with her bishon came by and Cobalt went nuts wrestling with her new friend. It reminded us of how she played with Mattie.
Sunday was another exciting day. We took Cobalt to the fenced-in dog park at the Brick Works. We actually let Cobalt off her leash here, for the first time. She met lots of dogs, mostly big ones, and had a grand time playing tag with them. We worked on her recall training, with some success, which was great.
There were a couple of problems, unsurprisingly. One of the dogs that joined later was a coon hound who thought Cobalt was great fun to chase; Cobalt found that a little overwhelming until I held on to her for a bit so the coon hound could sniff her and she could sniff back. After that, she was chasing the hound!
Later, a Rhodesian ridgeback was running around with Cobalt and bowled her over, which scared her -- and her yelp set the coon hound howling, which didn't help. It took a few minutes for her to relax again. She rejoined the chases again after a bit, though with less energy, and a few minutes later we headed home. She was very snoozy for the rest of the day, though she livened up for her obedience school class, where she likes to wrestle with a black mini schnauzer who has a bad habit of biting Cobalt's face.
After that, she was really exhausted, and spent most of the rest of the day snoozing. She likes sleeping half-on her pillow -- though which half is on is pretty random. It's not uncommon to find her upside-down with her head on the floor and her feet in the air on the pillow.
Too tired to care about the camera
Watching Mythbusters with us while I fold the laundry.
That's my Homestar Runner t-shirt in the back.
