Last weekend I spent the afternoon at a friend's apartment hanging out with a group of friends. Morey came too, naturally, but I don't think he had as much fun as I did for several reasons.
Reason #1: One of the people there is the best balloon artist in Texas. His balloon creations are amazing; he has made full-sized cars, manatees, and movie characters-all out of balloons (http://www.nate.balloonhq.com/ is his website if you want to see some of his creations) Another friend who was there is learning balloon artistry and so the two of them spent a good portion of the afternoon blowing up, twisting, and popping balloons. Morey was fine with all of it except the popping part. Oh yeah, and the part where a balloon monkey was designed to ride on his back...
Reason #2: My friend has a bark park at her apartment so we took Morey to visit it. We wandered over and started a game of ball with Morey. Unfortunately, after only a few tosses, the ball bounced over the fence and rolled down a steep parking lot that is next door to her complex. Morey kept running in circles trying to find his ball and we finally had to leave so he wouldn't keep focusing on his lost ball. : (
Reason #3: We spent part of the afternoon at the pool and at first Morey thought it was going to be his dream come true. Water and kids throwing balls in the water! What could be better? And then I put him in a down and told him to stay, crushing all of his swimming dreams for the day. There was a No Pets policy at the pool and I thought it might be pushing the line a bit to say I needed my service dog in the water with me. For the first 10 minutes he whined and quivered, barely able to control himself. He kept creeping closer to the edge of the pool (obeying the down command, not so much the stay command) and several times he dipped a paw in the water.
I don't think Morey has ever seen me in the water and this made him even more alert. All the people sitting around the pool were laughing at his obvious conflict between what he wanted to do and what he had been told to do. Several of them said that it would be fine to let him in the water because the management wasn't there and although I was tempted, I made Morey stay. I half expected him to accidentally-on-purpose fall in the water but he didn't. All the kids at the pool thought the circus had come to town: a balloon artist and a dog had come to their pool! Morey was showered with attention and at one point attacked by a balloon sword and then introduced to a balloon flamingo.
Like always, Morey handled everything like a pro. I felt bad for exposing him to so many difficulty and un-enjoyable experiences, but sometimes it is hard to predict what is going to happen and then it's too late to do anything about it. But, I did promise Morey that he will get another swimming trip soon!
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