Morning walk with Sherlock

True to form, Della had me up about 6:00 a.m. and I was finished with the morning feeding routine, including puppies, a half hour later. It was a beautiful morning and I was feeling inspired, so I loaded up Sherlock and we went off for a walk.

We did the same easy two mile walk through the park, avoiding the mud and ticks on the trails. We weren't able to completely avoid people and dogs this morning, however. I had two leashes on Sherlock - one attached to an easy-walk harness, and the second attached to a martingale collar. That worked well enough, but when we were heading towards another dog I just took a wide path detour into the adjacent field so I didn't have to fight with him so much. When the unleashed dog ran up to us, I just hoped for the best. I wasn't really concerned about Sherlock, he may bark at every dog he sees but it's just because he wants to meet them and play with them. When the off leash dog ran up to him Sherlock sniffed and greeted him and put a paw on him trying to provoke some play. If the other dog had taken offense to it we might have had a problem, but he just reciprocated the sniffing, but the not the play and then ran off. Sherlock was disappointed, thinking that he had perhaps met a friend. 

I need to get a gentle leader onto him (will they even fit with all that face?), but that's a fight for another day, maybe tomorrow because I would like to have better control over him with less effort when we walk if we are going to encounter people and other dogs.

He had a good time and didn't want to get back into the van at the end of the walk. The video is him trying to play with Maya Tuesday evening.

Pupdate:

Thanks to my friend Julie for this artist's rendering of the momma dog and pups. As you can see, they are all doing well.