Labor Day Weekend

Aaron and I had a nice relaxing weekend... with a shopping trip in LA thrown in for fun. On Sunday night, we took the dogs to the dog park. This is like the equivalent of Disneyland to little kids. Our dogs LOVE the dog park. Of course, it doesn't take much to excite them period. Here's what usually happens at the dog park:
We take Molly off her leash and she runs to the nearest dog she can find. She gets them excited, usually gets in their face and they start growling and nipping at her. If that doesn't turn into a full fledged fight (of course Molly is only playing, and thinks the other dog is too), then she will tear off around the park like a runaway locomotive knocking down anything, or anyone, that is in her way. By that point Aaron and I pretend to not know her and are joining with the rest of the people there saying, "Look at that crazy dog!"

We take Charley off his leash and he runs to the nearest tree, sniffs, marks his territory, then goes to the next tree. He is oblivious that there are other dogs around- one time he was even clueless that a small dog was humping him- and doesn't really know how to play with them. Every once in a while, he'll stumble across someone who will pet him, and he will sit by them until they've had enough of him and move on.

So, Monday night I had this great idea! There was river in the river bed this weekend (it only is released once a year), and I thought it would be great to take the dogs down there. I knew Charley would love the water, and Molly had enjoyed it in the past too. By the time we get there though, the water is all gone. There is only a small stream left. That didn't deter Charley. He went right for it. (If I wasn't lazy tonight, I'd post the pics of him) We let him off his leash (mind you this was NOT a closed in area), and he was content to chase his ball in the water over and over again. I thought (against my better judgement) that Molly could handle being off her leash too. Well, she sniffed and sniffed in the river bed. Every so often moving further and further away. Then we look up and see her climbing the river bed. We call her; she has selective hearing and ignores us. We call her; she continues to go away. Finally Aaron has to run after her, chasing her through tumbleweeds in flip flops. He finally caught her and brought her back to me, but by then, the evening was a wash.

Is Molly ever going to change? I think we're destined to have a strong-willed dog forever. The bad thing is now that Charley has lost all his weight, he has a lot more energy. The problem is that is is too strong to control. We knew we should have taken him to dog training before he lost all that weight... too late now... Is this a sign of what life with kids will be like? This is why we can't have kids! We can't even get our dogs to listen... and you can't put kids on a collar and leash!