Brutus's Best Day Ever!!!

Yesterday was a major mile stone for Brutus. He has been trying so hard to listen to the commands that we give him, so Don decided it was going to be a "no leash" kind of day. A little scary, but you have to do it sometime!

It started out with his morning walk. The funny thing is, Don took off Brutus's leash and said "let's go", and Brutus was so uncomfortable that Don actually had to put the leash back on to get him going, but just down the road he took it off. Don said it went great. They did the whole two miles completely off leash, and that even included one of our friends driving down the road and stopping to say "hello", and Brutus still stayed by Don's side. Woot woot!!

After his walk, he came right home and laid down in his big purple pool. Don just shook his head. I know that deep down inside he knows it's a great idea, but he just can't get past the whole "purple kiddie pool" for his big tough guy Brute image. I personally think it's adorable, plus, if it cools him down, all the better.

After lunch we decided to take Brutus swimming. He's been swimming before, but never without a leash, and this was going to be interesting. The first thing we did was take his leash off up at the garage so he could run down the hill on his own and just feel the freedom. He loves that, and it melted my heart to watch it. He went right to the dock and stood there waiting like "come on guys, lets go". I wasn't sure if he wanted to swim, or if he was waiting to go out on the boat. He loves to go out on the boat and watch the birds on the water.

But as it turned out, we caught up with him on the dock, Don said "come on buddy, lets jump in" and off he went. I really think he had the absolute best day ever!! I can't even count the number of times that Don threw his toy out for him, and he would go bounding through the water and swim out and get it. There was only one time that he got distracted and dad had to "go fetch". He did a good job too. :)

During this whole process, we noticed a little birds nest that was built under the pontoon this week, so we decided we would let the mama bird hatch her babies before we took the boat out. We have enough other stuff going on this weekend that we really didn't need to go boating, so she can just sit there and warm those eggs right up. Goofy place to build a nest, but she must have felt safe there.

I hope everyone else is having a great Memorial Day weekend. Stay safe, and BE HAPPY!!!!