Shio @ Central Park

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This week, a few friends (furry and non-furry) and I have been taking advantage of off-lead mornings at Central Park. Picture 3 adults, 2 large dogs and 2 medium dogs piled into a 4 door Honda. Quite a hilarious sight to see if you are on the road heading North at 7:30am commuting to work. I've worked with Shio for the past 3 months in training him to come to when when called by always rewarding him with liver treats or squeaky balls. It's worked well in the dog run and around Chelsea piers, but not enough for me to feel confident enough to let him roam the streets and know that he'll run back whenever I call. Didn't help that everysingleShibablog known to the internet seriously discourages Shibas from being off-lead. Had it not been for my friends, I would never reach there point where I would ever let him run free. They convinced me to let him be free and assured that with Shio's pack mentality, he will always stick near us and the dogs.

I thought, "Well, okay. Here goes nothing. Worse comes to worse, we'll just get another really freakin' adorable Shiba pup." (I kid!)

Morning 1: Shio is super Shiba excited and starts pulling so hard on the leash in Central Park that I'm really scared that he's going to run off never to be seen again. I finally let him run free and he proves that he can stick with the pack but doesn't listen when I call him to come back to me. I even wandered off in search for a restroom without him and he didn't even notice my absence. Not cool. But overall, he was well behaved and performed better than expected.

Morning 2: Shio is super Shiba excited and starts pulling so hard on the leash in Central Park that I'm really scared that he's going to run off never to be seen again. I have a feeling this is going to happen every morning we travel up to CP. The pack migrates over to the Great Lawn and Shio runs free. This time, he acknowledges when I call him and comes running over each time. Success!

Unfortunately, it's getting colder and colder each day and we are finding creative ways to stay warm while allowing our dogs to run free.

Here are some videos!

Not a Morning Shiba

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We’ve found that Shio is just not a morning doggy. Every morning at 6am, J or I will come stumbling out in a huff to grab him and run out so he doesn’t have an accident in his crate. When Shio was 3.5 months old, if we were late by just 5 minutes, there would be an accident so we are trained to jump up and go the second the alarm rings in the morning. This week we’ve found that he would just lift his head up to say “Hi” and then back down he goes. J and I will sit there until 6:30am while he lazily looks at us with his chin on his arm or stretches eveeeer soooo slooowlyyy in his crate.

Sometime in between 6:30am and 6:40am he’ll decide that he’s ready to trot out and join the rest of the world with his newfound leg lifting antics.

This is good news for us… we get to hit the snooze for 30 minutes before dragging ourselves out.