So I took the dogs to the park. I put a harness and leash on Bandit, a leash on Axle, put them both in the car, and drove down to EB Rains. This was the first time I had ever taken Bandit anywhere. I'm still not sure how I feel about the experience. Bandit is a huge dog, so I expected him to be difficult to keep on a leash. And he was. It wasn't really surprising, but it was still difficult. He just gets so excited at people or animals, and he'll make a break for them. So I have to hold his leash pretty good. It's tough, but he's really a good dog, just big and excitable.
Anyway, we're walking around the lake, and I've got about 45 minutes, maybe an hour, to kill before church starts, so I thought we'd go to the far end of the lake and sit at the bench for a while, just looking out over the park. It would have been peaceful, but as we got to the edge, Bandit saw some ducks out on the lake. Haha. I had to hold him back, telling him that those ducks aren't for him, leave them alone, don't even think about it... you know, all those good things you say to a dog when they want something they shouldn't.
He was doing good, though. He's actually really well behaved, imo. I had him sitting next to me while Axle's running around sniffing everything. Literally everything. I've never seen a dog more curious than this one. This was the walk where I decided that Axle might be the calmer dog of the two, but Bandit is definitely the better behaved.
I'm a little fuzzy about what actually happened next... Something flustered me, and I dropped one of the dogs leashes. I really really hoped it was Axle's, but that would've been convenient. He wouldn't have gone anywhere, really. So, of course, it was Bandit's leash I dropped... He immediately makes a break for it to go get those ducks.
He jumps down from the rocks and I don't really think he knew he was jumping into a lake. Haha. He was surprised to land in water, but it was still pretty shallow, so it just made him more excited and he bounded off for the ducks some more, but there's a point in the lake where the floor drops from like 2 or 3 feet to 60 or something really deep, and when Bandit hit that point, haha... I couldn't stop laughing. He gets all freaked out, "I'm swimming!!" and turns around immediately. Hahaha. It was hilarious. But I'm glad the dog can swim. Because I can't, so this story could have had a much different ending.
But it's not actually over yet. He turns around and keeps swimming back to the rocks, and when he gets to the edge of the lake, he tries to jump out, but he couldn't quite get a good foot placement to jump high enough, so he's just sitting there, claws digging into the rock, all like, "Brother! Help me!"
It was so entertaining. In between laughing, I went over to help him out. Thankfully he had his harness (and leash) on, so I could just kinda pick him up by that and help him out. He was happy to be out of the lake, and no longer even a little interested in the ducks. There were some geese later he wanted to run after, but I held him back from them. Which is probably good. Geese are mean.
We finished our walk around EB Rains, and then we went to church. I left them in the car since it was a nice cool day, and it had stopped raining, so they had the windows down. I did go out to check on them during church, and they were just sleeping. It was adorable, actually. I laid down the driver's seat, which is where Bandit had stretched out, and then Axle was curled up on the passenger seat. After church was over, I let them out to burn off some energy before the 30+ min drive home, so they got to meet everyone in the branch and get a ton of attention. It was a happy day for them.
But I totally lost Bandit's collar! I have no idea where. I didn't even notice until we were walking back to the car from the park, so it could be anywhere.
Overall, it was really fun. I would actually not be too afraid of letting them off their leashes, as long as there aren't a lot of people around. I think Axle would just smell everything everywhere, but he'd be fine. And Bandit would be excited and run after a lot of things, but he would chill out after probably an hour or two. Definitely gotta get those two out camping somewhere secluded this summer.
