Saturday, July 9, 2011

Charlotte Outing

Wayne got in some good training last week.in Charlotte. Another raiser, CW, Wayne, and I all took a nice trip to Charlotte to explore and expose the dogs to as many new things as possible.

We had to walk down a sidewalk that was lined with bird "business" which was a great distraction for the boys. Both were trying to sniff the ground to find out more about this mess. We entered Charlotte by way of the lightrail train. Both digs did great down-under's and stayed there the whole 15-20 minute ride. We got off the train and walked though a nice little park that has huge rock art made from different gems and such displayed. Neither of the dogs were disturbed by any of the pieces, not even the giant cat. We took pictures with a few of the different art statues.

Next we walked the streets. It was a busy day and getting warm quickly, It was good that the dogs got to work in the heat, they are going to need to get used to it before they go down to Southeastern. There were lots of men and women in business attire, people in casual clothes, people riding bikes, and lots and lots of food. We practiced finding and stopping at curbs, walking though crowds, and crossing streets with heavy traffic around us. Both dogs did so good.

After a while of navigating the streets, we decided we would go inside and work the dogs. We went in a building and went all the way up to the 27th floor and back down again. We walked around inside a mall for a little bit. We ate lunch inside the mall and the boys did yet another great down-under and stay while we ate.

We spent quite a few hours walking around in Charlotte getting all kinds of exposures. The boys got to see fountains everywhere and walked on metal stairs, walked through big crowds, and rode on the lightrail train.  We rode the train back to where we parked. By 1:00 in the evening, the amount of people on the train had tripled. We raisers had to stand up about the whole ride back while CW and Wayne had to manage to stay out of the way while not sliding on the floor at the same time. We walked past the same stretch of bird poop which was less of a distraction this time.

CW and Wayne both slept the whole way home and most of the rest of the day. It was a great outing.

Will post pictures soon,
Wayne's Mom