Another Camper Kolby Moment

Time has flown by and I have yet to post about one of our camping adventures in June. Kolby has always been a great camping puppy - he loves to ride in the RV, sleep under the table while I am preparing dinner, and patiently being invited up in my daughter's bed to sleep for the night.

He loves to go on walks to smell the fresh air of nature, and his favorite of all-time-camping-moment is when my daughter finds him a fresh stick to carry. And Kolby will carry and prance around with the stick in his mouth during a hike like he is the King of the World. It takes so little to please him.

This campsite was very relaxing; situated on a large lake with a fishing bridge. One late morning, my husband was going to stay back at camp to "smoke" salmon that he had caught earlier that morning over the campfire (it worked, by the way - yum). But my son wanted to go fishing off the bridge. My daughter joined Kolby and I for some photos ops while waiting for my son on the bridge; and then she went back to camp to spend time with her dad, while I continued to wait a few hours with my son.

During the wait, Kolby and I found a little cove area on our own bridge-like structure and sat together enjoying the fluffy white clouds and sunshine. It is amazing how many dogs go camping with their families. At one point about five dogs came around the area where Kolby and I were hanging out. It turned into an incredible learning environment for Kolby.

At first, he was interested in looking at the dogs (who thankfully were leashed), but then I turned it into a lesson in paying attention to me, not them. It didn't take long for Kolby to remember that I was way more interesting (insert ego boost). I called his name, offered a treat, and that was that. Kolby has amazing eye contact and will literally drool in anticipation that his eyes can will the behavior out of me to give him a cookie for good behavior.

It became so obvious that Kolby was maintaining awesome eye contact that the strangers with the said dogs started up a conversation with me. "Oh my goodness, look at his focus on you." which opened up my chance to share about Puppy Raising Kolby (he wasn't wearing his vest). It turned out to be a great conversation with a group of dads who had brought their kids to the lake. When the moms joined them fifteen minutes later, the dads were retelling the story of Kolby, and then others would over hear, and before I decided it was time to go back to camp to have lunch, everyone seemed to know Kolby (insert smile from me and Kolby's face below).

The fun part of Puppy Raising is sharing the joy of what it is that we do while our puppies are behaving so outstanding. It was definitely a Teamwork Moment that I will never forget.

The rest of the weekend was all about fishing, and more fishing, and campfires, and cuddles and walks with Kolby, and jokes and laughter. I am so thankful that we have camping memories of our family of four, and our cute four leggeds too.