Not a completely wordless Wed

Sophie at Labfest in Southern California. One of my friend's managed to catch this picture of my little diva. She developed cold tail on the second day of a three day beach trip. I figured she would not want to swim since her tail was down for the count. If a picture could capture her sentiments on the matter, this would be the picture. She got to the beach and spent the day retrieving. Even when I tried to make her rest.

We didn't make it on our planned hike this weekend. The weather was not cooperating. We have a tournament this coming weekend and it sounds like the weather may not cooperate again :-P

Pictures of the nice weather we hope to enjoy sooner rather than later!

Sophie's first real swim. She is the black spot in the water making a splash since she is swimming with her head as high as she can and paws flailing.

Last summer: retrieving at the beach with Rocko and Lola

Memorial Day Weekend

Sophie and I have a busy weekend ahead. Agility class tomorrow, a nice long hike on Sunday and Flyball practice on Monday. Then next weekend we have a flyball tournament! My parents will be coming to watch Sophie run so hopefully I can get them to take pictures for me.

A post on the lab board I frequent made me think what my most memorable moment is with Soph:

I have so many memories of the little monster, both good and bad LOL. But the one that stands out the most to me is the first time I took her swimming. I went with a friend and her two older labradors, both fantastic swimmers. We let them all play fetch on land. Sophie has always been fast and was immensely enjoying fetch on land.

Then we moved to fetch in the water. The other two labs saw the ball hit the water and took off. Sophie followed until she a few steps in she realized she was in the water. She immediately backed up and proceeded to whine. She whined and whined until the other two dogs came back. The ball was thrown again and she would wade and then whine.

This went on for awhile. Sophie was less than pleased that she was not retrieving. But she was too nervous to swim. So she came up with a plan b.

Wait until the younger of the two labs came back and steal his toy. Then return to us with the toy. She stalked the edge of the beach and would steal his toy every time and run to us "look I did it, I retrieved the toy"

I knew in that moment that I had a) a very silly puppy and b) a very smart puppy. She has since learned to swim. Still not her favorite thing in the world but she doesn't just stand on the edge waiting for others to retrieve anymore.


If you want to read some more memorable moments: Lab Board Memorable Moments

So, what is your most memorable moment with your pup?