Retrieving at Dog Park

So I've been trying to get into some exercise routine with Roscoe. The plan is to get him really tired out before noon so he sleeps all afternoon and I can do whatever and he doesn't bite my feet while I try and do things. So the routine has been- I get up whenever. Make coffay. Do internet stuff and give Roscoe breakfast. Then we head out to the dog park which is like a mile and a half away. (It's a long walk. I know. Exercise is definitely new for me but that was part of the point of getting a dog.) It's a huge park and Roscoe really likes it. Then the plan is to let Roscoe run like nuts with the other dogs for a while and then we walk all the way back.

Anyway, the last few days for whatever reason, when we get there's been no other dogs in the park. A huge fenced in park. Totally empty. So there's the two of us standing in the middle of a dog park with nothing going on. Roscoe looks at me like, 'Yo! Where's all my peeps?' I'm like, 'Yknow, I don't f'in know! WTF?' But I don't want to waste the big walk so I'll try to get Roscoe running by throwing a stick or whatever. Have him play retrieve like a 'normal' dog (which he's proving to me he ain't more and more everyday). Roscoe has never been clear on the point of 'retrieve'. Usually he just won't chase it at all. He'll just look at me like, 'Why'd you throw that? What did it ever do to you?' Sometimes he'll like run after it and then he'll sniff it and make a mental note or whatever. Then just wander off like a dope.

So the only way to get him to run is for me to actually throw a stick and then chase it myself with him. I figure if I show him how to play it might help him get the point of 'retrieve' so eventually I can just stand there and throw a ball to tire him out. But in the meantime I've been throwing a stick and the two of us run after it. And then I pick it up and throw it somewhere else. It's like golf but way stupider. I do this until I'm tired out. Then I schlep back home and hope he konks out..

He seems to be getting the idea of the retrieve game a little more- but not totally. I just feel like a dope hanging in an empty dog park and chasing a stick that I throw myself (myself? like I'd prefer to chase a stick that someone else throws more?). Plus the other day I noticed people stopped at the fence watching me be an active participant in retrieve. They were giggling! I know I was being giggled at! I wasn't the giggler! I was the gigglee!

What the hell?! Retrieve, dopey dog! Go! Fetch! Get it! WTF!

ok bye!

tOdd