Introducing new things

 

Sitting and chilling near Mr. Blue man.

I am a huge advocate of finding and introducing new things to our dogs.  Like us, the more that they deal with a variety of things in their life; the better they will be to do it.   Each dog is an individual; how you approach new things in life will depend on who your dog is.  Luke is a very aware dog but now with 13.5 years behind him,  nothing much fazes him.  Elsa on the other hand is extremely sensitive to the environment around her and suspicious.  She is not fearful, just suspicious to the unknown.  So when I get the chance to show her something new, I love it.

This past weekend Luke and I were at one of our favorite parks.  I didn't know that there was a "fly" festival going on when we got there.  But as I pulled in the parking lot was almost filled to capacity.  We hopped out and did a half go round of the park.  There were lots of people, booths set up and those little plane and helicopters there.  I wanted to bring Elsa here to see it all.  With Luke having finished his walk, we headed for home.  I switched out dogs and went back to the park.  By now the lot was full except for one last spot which I nabbed. 

We got out and made our way to the crowd.  Just before we got into the major crowd, a giant blue, waving thing welcomed us to the park.  It was there for the event and Elsa had never seen one of these things.  She didn't think much of it until we passed right beside it and she looked up.  At that very moment, it did it's bend down to grab you thing and she had a little startle.  I was surprised that it didn't scare her more.  Seeing that it did bother her; we sat on a bench right beside it, and watched. Like always, I got on my "we don't care about that thing," attitude.  It is essential not to react to anything that our dogs are concerned with; when trying to explain that it is just a nothing in life. She was taking in all the people and commotion that was going on; so the blue guy was just glanced at when he did his bend down to grab you thing.  I got my camera out for a shot as she kept one eye on the comings and goings and the other on Mr. Blue. 

Having sat with the blue man for long enough, we made our way through the maze of people and booths.   Elsa snorted quite a bit through it all.  When she has something to say it is done via snorts.  We had a big walk, did the whole park and around again through all the booths before heading once again by Mr. Blue balloon guy.  I made sure to walk right past him this time and Elsa only gave him a quick glance, nice.  She wasn't a fan of his; and put him in her memory bank for later. 

On the way home I decided that my Xterra desperately needed cleaning.  After going on an off-roading trip it was caked with mud so we hit the car wash.  This is something else that Elsa doesn't love but is fine with now.  She watches very carefully as we head into the dark tunnel and is clearly happy when she sees the light of day.  All in the day to day.