Guest star of Reyna’s blog. . it's Sheba!

This weekend Reyna went back to Judi, and we unexpectantly got Sheba until Tuesday. She is a 11 month old black lab. Her family had to leave town on a moments notice, so we were asked to take her. Today, my son wanted to go to the Bass Pro Shop, and I thought it would be a great experience for Sheba.

Sheba has done something sort of strange the past couple of days. When she sees her leash and her puppy coat, she turns and runs to my bedroom and hides in the crate. And she will not come out.

I took a picture of her as I tried to convince her to come out of the crate. I am not sure what this is all about, because I have puppy sat her many times and she has never done this. Maybe it’s too hot and she wants to stay in where it is cool? She has done this twice so far, so I will let her raisers know about it. Well, I did finally drag her out of the crate and we headed off to the Bass Pro Shop. My 16 year old son drove us there, and somehow I am still here to tell you about the trip!

We were starving when we arrived, so we went over to Red Robin for lunch.

When we sat down at our table, Sheba went right underneath the table like a good girl. She actually did not move a muscle until we left. What a good girl! Here is a picture of the way she just laid under the table. I think she was hot and the tile floor felt good. Poor black labs…they get so hot!

After lunch, we went into the Bass Pro Shop. There are all sorts of crazy distractions in this place, and Sheba could care less. She walked very calmly as we shopped around for a while.

Tyler wanted to look at some hunting knifes, so we had a long wait in the hunting department just waiting for some assistance. She just sat there very patiently and looked into the glass case as if she was contemplating a purchase!

After we finally got help in the hunting department, I decided to take Sheba around for some distraction training. Our first stop was the dog toy isle. However, it was not a challenge for Sheba as she was more interested in me than the dog treats!

Next, we stopped by some decoys to see her reaction, but yet again, she was more interested in me than the ducks!

We moved on to a fake Wolf, which she was interested in. She kept smelling and licking the Wolf’s ears. But she was not distracted, just a little curious.

Next, we exposed her to ducks and geese! She was sooo good. Since she is technically a bird dog, I though this would be more difficult. But nope……take a look!

Once we finished the distraction training, we had a chance to do some stair work. But these stairs were really different because they were surrounded by big fish! Another thing that made these stairs challenging was they had a very loud waterfall around them. Sheba was a little sensitive to the sound of the water, but she didn’t miss a beat.

On the way back down the stairs, Sheba noticed an overhead obstacle. Or should I say an overhead distraction. Ya, that is more like it. The birds hanging on the wall and the ceiling really caught her eye!

When I refocused her, we finished the stairs and then we went over to an indoor pond that had huge bass in it. It also had a couple for fake guys fly fishing. Sheba had no interest in it. She is such a great dog!

I thought since she didn’t have any interest in the pond, that she might be distracted or afraid of a very large stuffed bear. Well, Sheba wasn’t afraid or distracted by it, she actually made friends with it!

I finally found something that interested Sheba. There is this large glass wall with huge fish in it. You can walk right up to it, and Sheba calmly sat there watching these huge fish as they swam by. It was really cute to watch her head move back and forth as she followed these big monster fish.

Before we left, we took Sheba outside and my son Tyler took these photos of her. I think my favorite picture is the last one.

Considering that she is not my dog, I sure do love her a lot!