Day 91 - Friday (Water foul):
Today was a scorcher, I think it reached the lower 70s today, what a great Friday. Today started off a bit earlier than usual. We went into work 30 minutes early to finish up painting our new office (have you ever heard of employees painting their own offices?). When we got to work Finster went straight to his crate and I went to painting. At 10 I had a conference call which I knew might be trouble as Finster has been having a hard time lately between 10-1030. Sure enough, when 1008 rolled around Finster started whining and pacing and acting like he had to go pee or else he would explode. I let him pace, with my phone on mute until 1040 then I let him out of his crate to try to divert his attention from his bladder, talk about multitasking. This worked for about 10 minutes and then he started going to the door and demanding to go out NOW. I IM'd Ron and asked him to take him out while I was still on the conference call with NJ (who don't know there is a dog in the office everyday). Ron said he pulled and pulled until he got into the woods to deposit some fertilizer. When I got off the call I took Finster out for a little 10 minute stroll. It's amazing what a 10 minute walk can do for a dog. When we got back I put Finster back in his crate and he went to sleep almost immediately.

For lunch we went to the park. When we pulled in I saw Oscar diving into the pond with glee; I thought to myself, this is going to be the day my boy becomes a man and goes swimming. Finster ran over and watched Oscar a few times and went in up to his waist again. Then Ivan held Oscar back so Finster would have a chance. We threw the ball in deeper and deeper and the last time Finster went in far enough to swim :) I was cracking up. When he went for the ball he went under water for a few seconds. This he didn't seem to like too much because it ended his swimming career (at least for the day). After about 10 minutes Finster felt like getting muddy so he rolled around in the dirt and covered himself with filth.

Because of the weather there were tons of kids playing on the playground. At one point a few 2-3 year olds came over to watch the dogs playing in the pond. Finster and Oscar ran over to check them out. Before we could get over there the dogs were bouncing around them getting the kids riled up. At one point one of the kids took off running and screaming. This excited Finster and he chased the little girl. The girl was crying "stay away" which of course excited Finster more. Nothing came of it though, Finster didn't jump on her or knock her down luckily. I finally caught up with them and pull Finster back. In this situation my "come" command was useless. I might as well have said "bananas". After this Oscar went back into diving into the pond and swimming like an olympic champion until he almost passed out and Finster played on the beach digging and chewing stuff. Before we left I washed Finster off in the pond and dried him off as best I could.

The afternoon was pretty uneventful. We went for a 330 walk with the boys in which about 1/2 way through Finster stopped and laid down on the speed bump (he was leashless at this point). The dog is weird.

After work I took him over to Sedona's for a quick run. We were there for about 20 minutes and then he went to his crate until around 930. E and I went to see Alison Smith, author of "Name all the animals", the "If all of Rochester read the same book" choice for 2005/6 at writers and books in Rochester. Finster made it through without a problem.