Luce has a new trick. When Stacey approaches the car when he is in it, he first goes the the window where we are closest to and then sits. Then when she gets close, he lifts up both paws like a bear and holds her as best he can:
I went around the other side of the car while this was going on to take these pictures. In perfect Luce fashion, he looked over to me as if to say, “Dude, I am having a private moment here, back off”.
We were visiting family for a few days and Luce decided to be a ball dog for a short time. He would go chase it when thrown and then bat it around a while before bringing it back. He never showed much interest in playing fetch with a ball before so this was a total surprise. I got my phone to get a video and he did as he did previously at first but then seemed to realize he was being recorded so he stopped, looked around, and probably thought, I can’t let them get this on video. I’ll just hang around like I’m not sure what just happened. Clearly I didn’t just chase the ball out the door. I’m a Bernese Mountain Dog, not a retriever, for Pete’s sake.
This has been a recurring subject, Luce’s affinity for my gym bag. I have been putting it in the back seat on occasion and Luce settles in more so that when it is not there. He now seems to like to tuck one, or both paws under it while we drive. It has now reached “Woobie” status. A well deserved shout out to my friend Steffen for naming this so perfectly. This was Luce in the back seat when I got to the Gym:
And this was after I took out the Gym Bag, AKA: Luce’s Woobie and he was like, what happened?
In case you are too young, or maybe too old, or just out of touch. Here is the original Woobie:
Extra credit if you can answer the question: ” So are you running 220?”
Today was week 4 training. Luce does really well walking at variable speeds, abrupt stopping, right, left, and about turns. Highly distracting environments are still a challenge but we still have many weeks to go. Here he is with Stacey doing a sit stay as Stacey walks away (launching with her right foot of course):
Then she waits at the end of the leash for a while:
Then Luce recalls perfectly.
Lui e un cane bene, si?
Well, today was time to do a little weight in at the vet to see just how big, Big Lu is getting. He weighed in at 83.5lbs. Here he is back home cooling off on the stone tile floor:
A little later in in the day, he was happy to stand vigil at the front door while Stacey watered the front yard, so while we may call him “Lazy Lu” sometimes, he knows when to hold em’, when to fold em’, when to walk away, and when to wait by the front door for him mommy to come back inside.
Luce feels right at home in my recently renovated (and professionally designed) home office. When he is not at my feet under the desk, or just outside the door, he like to crash by the window, like here:
Luce was taking a nap just outside my office on the tile. This view from my chair is what prompted me to take the picture as it had a “crime scene” look about it.
Then, I proceeded to investigate further. As you can see, he is actually laying on his side but maybe wanted to get some fresh air on his belly, Idunno?
Most of the time I work from my home office and Luce likes to sneak in under the desk and lay in front of my feet. Now that he is getting big, he can’t get by un-noticed. I backed up to take this picture which caused him to pop his head up looking like “What up dude, I was taking a nap?”. 