My dog... the Graduate

Mr. Barney is now a Adult I graduate... diploma and all!!!

I was on the fence as to whether or not we'd actually get to don the cap and gown (gown didn't fit... dang) due to the lack of time we had to practice the prior week—but he did me proud!

His final exam included:
1. Sit
2. Down
3. Stay
4. Touch (impressive seeing he now thinks any hand signal is "shake")
5. Shake
And the grand poomba finale...
6. "Leave it" with two treats, soft fish ones mind you (stink-a-roo), resting on both paws.

Yay, Barney!!!

Rockstar

So for the first time EVER (okay, so we've only had 5 classes so "ever" isn't really that long) Barney was the A student in class. It could have been the hot dogs and cheese the trainer brought especially for us to "help focus."

Hey, whatever... it worked.

Bizarre Love Triangle

After a night of, um, how shall we say slight hostility... all the dogs in the Darding household (Barney included) were just chillin' out... they all started getting along almost perfectly and seemed to want to have a little slumber party on the floor in the room I was staying in. Okay, maybe they wern't that loving towards each other... but I'll pretend they were.

Barney needs to work on his self confidence issues.
That was definitly something I learned needs a LOT of work.

Thanks for being patient, Maggie and Mel. We had tons-o-fun!!!

Reuniting with old friends...

For more Barney car boredom, well, I'm sure he at least saw it that way at first... we hopped in the car (yes, again) and drove down to visit Ryan just inside the Ozarks. I hadn't seen him for over ten years and was so thrilled he was around this weekend. Barney was given free reign of his massive yard while we caught up. (I'm sure Barney was reminiscing his recent homeless days and either being thankful for his new life, or wondering how he could run for it...)
He also got to be off leash in the park until the little guy started puking after eating who knows what kind of plant/mushroom/fungus that scared me half to death. He was fine... got that nasty stuff right out apparently. :-)

Ryan and I (and Barney) did make it to the cave.
I've been told I have 20 "Ryan hiking credits" left.
I'm keeping count! :-)

Barney hearts Coy

Barney found many reasons this weekend to ask me why the hell we live in Chicago.
Cheryl and Keith's coy pond was one of the many... I keep getting told Barney has it pretty good... I'm thinking these fish don't have it too shabby either. :-)

Becca (aka: the female dog whisperer)

Becca took Barney and I on a day of fun on our first day in St. Louis...
Barney is quite the traveler as he saw the Arch, did a drive-by of the new Busch Stadium (um, hello... gorgeous), ate some Ted Drewes, crashed tailgating for the Mizzou/Illini game that night and had a nice walk through Forest Park... oh, and got some good belly rubs. Not too shabby. :-)

Barney does St. Louis

My dog might soon smother me in my sleep, and that's only for this weekend alone. Who knows how much pent up anger we're going to work through outside of 12 hours in a car. :-)

He handled it like a champ, even became buds with Mel and Maggie after a bit of the "female dog whisperer" taking control. More to come...