Day 68 - Wednesday (Training - 2nd run):
Early to bed, early to rise. Finster went to bed early on Tuesday and therefore woke barking at 610 this morning. This is better than waking at 630 because at that point there is no point trying to go back to sleep.

For lunch we went to the Kings bend park again to play with Oscar (http://oscar-de.blogspot.com/). Oscar was no where to be found so we took a nice long walk on the railroad tracks (see pictures). When we were about to turn back after about 30 minutes of walking I noticed a train coming. I pulled Finster off the tracks and watched as it passed, about 30 feet from us. Finster took it pretty calmly, he fidgeted a bit, but nothing too serious. We continued to walk back to the park, and when we got back to within 100 yards of it I saw another train coming around the bend. This time Finster was about 100 feet behind me, so he was between me and the train. I gave him a nice loud, worried "come" and boy did that dog sprint to me. He must have heard the inflection in my voice and reacted to it. Those commands do come in handy. So we watched the 2nd train pass and then went back to the car. Finster took the 2nd train like a champ. When we were getting into the car I saw Oscar playing on the bank of the pond. Oh well, maybe next time.

After work Finster and I went straight to the store to work on the Yates Gallery a bit more. When we got there E shoo'd us away because there was a customer inside. So Finster and I went and walked up and down main street. Finster loose leash walked like a champion dog! He stopped and waited when I was looking at a window display, or at a light, and he didn't pull at all (or at least not much). When we were walking past the coffee shop there was a guy standing outside. Finster of course edged towards him. The guy backed up and asked "does he bite?" It's funny when people ask me that. Would anyone ever say "Ya, he does, you better watch out". I said "no" and the guy petted Finster as he told me about his choc. lab, who, according to this guy, is very energetic. That seems to be the way choc. labs are, I've never met a calm one.

When we went back to the store I had Finster sit/stay on the entry carpet while E and I talked for about 10 minutes. He only got up like twice, so I put him back into place both times. Then we went upstairs for some work. I let him sniff around the Yates room for a while and then put him in the corner and tried to get him to stay there. This worked for about 2 minutes at a time, but he always got distracted by something (generally Erica! she's a sucker for puppy eyes).

When we got home I started trying to teach him a new trick. I want him to carry stuff for me on the "carry" command. To accomplish this I simply say "carry", put something in his mouth and walk. If he drops it before I give him the "drop" command then he gets no treat. If he carrys until I tell him to drop it then he gets one, pretty simple. He can carry his stick great, but the item I actually want him to carry, my lunch bag, he attacks and shakes like it's a live duck. He will get it eventually.

At 1030 E and I went up to watch Seinfeld. We put Finster on the entryway linoleum again and he stayed the whole time without me having to tell him.