awww, a flower pot for me?

Awwwww..... How sweet. While I was busy typing out my email plea to parents of Kyra's class to assist with Pioneer Day activities, Riley brought a flower pot to my bed. When he was carrying around a smaller one last night, Kyra teased me that it was his Easter basket gift for me. Little did I know that tonight he would deliver.

I'm probably bragging too soon, but a few days ago I caught him in the act of ripping Tasha's bed, and I yelled loudly and agrily at him "NO! UNH UNH!" and stomped towards him. He had torn a hole in it a few weeks ago and has been removing stuffing almost daily ever since, whenever I haven't been in the room. I remembered that the dog trainer said to startle him with a loud disapproval when caught in the action of bad behavior. He's been stealthy for the most part, doing damage when I'm not around, but since I was in the bathroom and heard him ripping at the dog bed, I ran out and caught him in the action. He hasn't touched it since. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

On Sunday, he wasn't the star pupil at obedience training class, but was a close second. His girlfriend, Lucy, was the star performer. As soon as Riley and Lucy saw each other in the store, before the class began, they happily greeted each other with playful pawing and her jumping on top of him. She's a cute black lab/border collie mix about 2 months younger than Riley. It was tough keeping them separated during the training class, but they eventually settled down. Riley did ok with "walking nicely on a leash" up and down the pet store aisle, but as soon as class was over he was dragging me through the store. Guess it's going to take a while to master "walking nicely on a leash"... Kyra and I took him and Tasha out for a walk last night and gave up on trying to get them to "walk nicely". We decided it was easier to let them pull us along the 1-mile loop around the neighborhood than to have our hands sliced by the leash when holding so tight attempting to keep them slow and by our sides. Besides, who wants to "walk nicely" when we can sprint instead?