Sybil and Timken Help Me Celebrate! Part 2 of 2 Scary Thing

After the dog park and getting all the dogs back in their crates in the car Dave and I walked around the area checking it out. There is a nice little beach with driftwood and a view. Dogs aren't allowed on this section of the beach.

Then we walked across a raised path that went over the marina and then back down to ground level where you can proceed all the way into the town of Edmonds if you kept walking. We decided that we should get Sybil and Tim and take them for a short walk and see how they did with the raised pathway. Something new for them to experience.

lol Well I guess someone didn't read the sign!

Tim says "what is this?"

ummmm foster dad this is really not going to work for me.

I want to get to you but this thing is so scary!

It doesn't matter where I view it from, nope, not really liking this strange floor ahead of me.

Dave just stood on the walkway and waited. He wasn't calling Tim to him, he was just standing there and Tim stepped on.

He then ran to Dave and he got lots of reassurance and kudos for making it half way.

More waiting and patience and Tim did manage to make it to the first solid landing. Tail is down but not tucked as much as he could tuck it. We all stood here for a good while and rested our brains before moving forward.

Sybil was very brave and very interested in the smells coming up from below. Through the slats she could smell the water and boats.

She just was so curious with those smells1

She was so interested in the smells she didn't seem to mind going across the long scary thing.

Dave kneeled down and Tim crept up to him he had a ways to go on this next section. Dave was willing to work with him and see if he could help Tim make it across.

Baby steps and Tim is on scary thing #2

Dave decided to walk on his knees and Tim starts to follow and now he is smelling the water below.

Sybil thinks foster dad walking on his knees is pretty cool so she goes up for a pet.

A little further and time for everyone to get more pets!

All of a sudden Tim starts walking! He was doing it and I was giving lots of cheers while trying to get a picture. Yay Timken!!!!!

He made it! That was a long stretch!

More loves.

There were three more sections but we had not planned to continue this exercise. Tim had a great success and here he is on the next landing looking good!

Tim was carried over the rest of the scary thing and now he gets to relax and do some sniffing.

Here is Tim walking along checking out the boats. I doubt he has ever seen or smelled anything like this before. He was doing great.

Tim was carried all the way back over the scary thing. Here he is in foster dad's arms enjoying the view of the marina.

Tim going back over scary thing in comfort and style. What a great day we all had.

When we got home Tim was full of vigor! He grabbed the first toy he found and shook it, then ran around the house kicking up his heels. He and the dogs all had their dinner and then were all ready to settle down in our laps for some TV time.

Sybil and Timken Help Me Celebrate! Part 1 of 2 Dog Park

Today is my birthday and when Dave asked what I wanted to do of course I said "something with the dogs!". Really 99% of the time that is always my answer so the difference today was we went to a different place than we normally go to walk the dogs during the week. We live where it is not safe to walk dogs in our neighborhood. There is no shoulder and so with 6 dogs in the house who all need to go for walks on a regular basis we always have to hop in the car and go to where we can safely walk. Throw in a dog like Timken who is still working up to walking where there is a lot more going on and we tend to go to the same places over and over. Being this is Monday and a cold and gloomy one at that I thought there would be a good chance that Edmonds, WA would not be too crowded. We had discovered a cool dog park there a few months ago and so we thought we would see how Tim and Sybil did there if it wasn't too busy with dogs.

When we first arrived there were a few dogs and humans there so we left Tim and Sybil in the car and just took our dogs Skip, Jenny, and Liza in at first to check it out and to see how the other dogs behaved before bringing Tim in. The last thing we wanted was for him to get spooked so this was a good plan.

Liza loves to explore anything and everything

Skip waits for dad to get in the park with his ball, Blue.

View of Olympic Mt range from the dog park. Not bad!

Our plan turned out to be a good one. There were a few larger dogs there and one in particular was a younger dog with adolescent dog skills. In other words he practically ran Skip over when he was fetching his ball and also proceeded to viper attack Skip on the back of his neck. I don't blame the dog he didn't know what he was doing wrong, but the owner didn't do anything to stop him. I was all ready to ask the guy to please call his dog off when he started to head to the gate to leave, soon after, the other dogs that were there all left too and we had the entire place to our selves! Perfect for getting Timken and Sybil in the park and not having to worry about them having a bad experience.

In comes Tim. He is a little nervous but curious.

Sybil takes no time at all to start exploring

Tim is kicking up his heels now and starting to get the hang of this!

This park is right on the water, it really is a lovely park.

Sybil shows Tim what sniffing needs to be done.

More sniffing....Sybil loves to experience her world through her nose.

Tim completely forgot himself and got totally into sniffing to see who had been there and what story they left behind.

There are a couple of cool red fire hydrants planted in the park, lots of info going on there!

I love this picture of Tim. So wide eyed and curious. We just lucked out that we could be there with no other dogs for his sake. He really was able to feel confident and free in a new place.

Calling the dogs to head back to the car, Sybil comes running....

Tim comes running....

Please stay tuned for part 2. Timken and Sybil meet something scary and with some time and patience we had another success! What could be a better birthday than this? Oh and the lunch and cocktail we had after was pretty great too. Thank you Dave (and dogs) for making it such a wonderful day :)

Timken Continues His Journey of Meeting New People

We are not that social in our home but have really been making a point to invite people over to the house so Timken can continue to learn that he can trust people that we bring into his life. We asked Skittles and his mom to join us for an afternoon and Tim did really great!

Santa Skittles came for a visit.

Timken and Sybil hanging out

Sybil doing what she does best! Getting friendly with our visitor, Sybil loves almost everyone.

Okay Tim decides he is going to be super brave and he gets really close to Angela

What a darling face he has.

Tim is waiting his turn to get in to meet Angela, he even had gotten into her lap for an instant.

This was a first, Tim and Birdie do a very small amount of play, this was about the extent of it but that is progress!

Tim coming to me for reassurance and Jenny wondering why he is in her face :)

Tim goes to Dave for reassurance

Another first! Timken cleaning Jenny's eyes, very sweet. He hasn't done this again.

I love this picture, l-r, Skittles on mom's lap, Jenny-Boo and Timken on Angela's coat and Sybil in my lap. Another great experience for Tim! Thanks to Angela for helping Tim, he really took to you and that is a wonderful thing!