My Dog has a Busier life than I Do!

[Konotashi]

I have a 3 year old Pomeranian, and he's the greatest dog ever. (Though I may be just slightly biased).

A few days ago (on the 17th) I was called in for him to go to a photo shoot for Petsmart. It was his very first shoot, so I was a bit nervous!
He did fantabulous! Lots of sit/stays (facing away from us, but looking at us over his shoulder), down/stays and stand/stays. He only broke position two or three times in the entire hour.

One of the recruiters (who was in charge of his wardrobe changes) said he was the only dog to ever tip over when she was taking something off of a dog. She said most dogs pull back when she takes a jacket off of them, but not Ozzy! He was so good he tipped and did a hand stand. LOL

The photographer and recruiters were all very impressed with him and were saying he was doing better than some dogs that have been to several shoots. They asked me if I took him to any of the practice photo shoots, and when I told them I didn't even know there WERE practice shoots, they were shocked.
They told me not to expect that to be his last shoot.

I'll post pics when the photos go into print. Pretty sure they're going to be in advertisements.

Then at the end of August/beginning of September, we're going to Vegas for a flyball tournament. He'll be running in singles as well as full time on the team. Only reason he's running singles is so we can shoot for U-FLI fastest Pomeranian again. He got 2012 fastest Pom, so we're gonna shoot for that for 2013.

Then yesterday, he went to his very first dock jumping practice. It was a limited availability type practice that was more for fun than anything, so no instruction was given.

However, I made a huge mistake, as I completely forgot about the fact that Ozzy is petrified of swimming pools. He jumps off the dock at the dog park (in the lake) and loves swimming in the lake and such (so basically dark water). But wouldn't come within 4 feet of a swimming pool. He'd be paralyzed with fear! I totally skimped that fact until a few hours before the dock practice.

I made an emergency run to my dad's house to try and get him used to the pool.

I started by getting in the pool myself with the BEST THING IN THE WORLD (his ball), and you'd never know he was afraid of the pool. He slowly crawled right in via the steps and swam to me. Gave him his ball and he swam back - repeated that for a bit.

Then I moved up to tossing his ball in the pool and he was flying in after it! After some of that, I stepped it up to the diving board. I put his life jacket on for some confidence, and he was launching off the diving board after his ball. Little bit of that... off came the life jacket, and he was already a pro! LOL

In less than an hour, he went from being absolutely terrified of being within 4 feet of the edge of the pool to launching in the pool from the diving board!

Was teachin' him where the steps were.



Whee-hee!!



Ba-ting!



Promise, I didn't throw him in any of these pics. LOL



Makin' his way to the steps.



Takin' off!



My wittle drowned rat. x3



Trying to walk on water - doesn't work well.



Super-hero flying over the water is a much better tactic.



Started drying myself off with the towel. Apparently he wanted to use it, too!





Edit: I know, the pool looks terrible.... We had a pretty bad storm the other day.

[angllady2]

I didn't know you could do any of those things with a Pom. I thought they were pretty much just stand there and look good dogs. That's awesome!

He's such a little cutie when he swims! I bet he keeps you on your toes with all that training.

Congratulations to you both.

Gale

[Konotashi]

He's such a smart little dog! He catches onto everything so fast, I'm always trying to think of new things to teach him. Right now I'm working on getting him to hop on his back legs.

Probably going to be making more visits to Dad's for some swimming. Not just to get him used to jumping off the diving board (since I plan on competing with him in dock diving competitions) but it'd be good conditioning for flyball. Right now I take him out in the morning to play fetch until he wears himself out, then in the evening I take him and hook him up to my bike on the Walky-Dog and run him. Too dang hot to do anything during the day!

[Pyrate81]

That's awesome! Gratz on having a super Pom.