To Grandma's House We Go...

 *Sorry, no pictures this post! :(
Yesterday we went to my grandparent's house, they live like 20 minutes away so we see them often. They said Sparky could come too, so he came (of course). He was good for the first five minutes and then he saw their fish pond...
He jumped in and swam around until I told him very sternly to get 'OUT' of the pond. The fish pond isn't very big, it is a circle and its diameter is probably only 4.5ft-5ft, and it is only about 18in. deep. But it was big enough to make Spark wet and smelly. I ate my lunch outside with him so I could keep an eye on him (he found all sorts of ways to get into trouble, eating Grandma's flowers, digging up the mole hills, drinking the nasty water, trying to eat raccoon scat, etc.), he ended up with his leash under my chair. [Does that tell you how he was behaving?]

He finally started behaving again so I let him off leash and let him play with the outside toys I brought for him. Then all of a sudden...he was in the fish pond again and again and again, etc., he was running around in a circle so fast I couldn't get him to stop. He was soooo wet when he got out! What did I think of all this? Let's just say I was far from thrilled with his behavior.

After that he was on his leash for the rest of the time he was outside, which didn't please me or him very much, but he brought it onto himself. I told him not to go in the pond and told him "NO" very sternly every time he was next to the pond. But do you think he would listen? No.

Mom had a few errands to do and was going to leave the boys (and me) at Grandma's. But since Spark was as good as dry when she was preparing to leave, she asked if Spark and I wanted to join her. I said 'YES!' I was hoping that Spark would behave better in public then he was at Grandma's.

I know I'm so bad, taking my pond-water-smelling dog into public. But hey, he didn't smell that bad... ; )

We went to Dollar General first. Spark was a bit of a brat in the parking lot but the minute we were inside he was on his best behavior (he does this a lot where he's terrible in the parking lot but the minute he's through the door, he's an angel...It drives me CRAZY! Why can't you be perfect all the time?)
He did a great job of leaving things alone, heeled like a graduate, and listened to me. When my mom and I were trying to decide which Rubbermade tubs to get and taking a couple of minutes, he decided it would be wise to lay down and wait until 'the women' were ready to go. We walked by bags of candy on low shelves and then cookies and other treats for people all right at Spark's level, but surprisingly I only had to tell him 'leave-it' once! Hurray!

We got in line to check out and ended up behind a visually-impaired man with a white cane. He had to get an inch away from the credit card payment thing, to be able to see the numbers so he could enter his pin number. He had someone along to help him around too. Spark watched him carefully, I don't know if he noticed that there was something a bit different about this person or not. But he did watch him, but wasn't afraid of the cane. I was proud of him, here's to hoping that one day Spark helps someone like that man.
Did I mention that he did all of this without his Halti???

Spark and I then sat in the car while Mom ran into the grocery store. I don't think Spark is quite ready to go into a grocery store.

After we were done at the grocery store we headed to the vet to pick up Bunson's incontinence medicine. The difference between Spark and Bunson when it comes to going to the vet, even if it is just to pick up a bottle of medicine, is that Bun freaks out the sight of the building and pulls you back towards the car. Spark gets out of the car all curious and happy, he goes right to the door and goes in the building no problem. He sniffed the air and the rug by the door when we came in but didn't act afraid. We then went to the scale and weighed him...He weighed 47.6 lbs! He was very interested in the dogs barking back in their kennels and wanted to go see them, but I wouldn't let him, so he decided barking at them would just have to work. I also put an end to that fun.

We went back to Grandma's and he behaved better than before. Then we came home and both dogs got baths. Spark's cape and collar got washed too.
By the end of the day we were both exhausted. That's a good thing I guess.