Fletch the acrobat

Update from Ang...

So we've had a very busy summer, once again! We've been visiting friends and family in Minnesota, South Dakota, and we're heading to Philadelphia next week to visit Jeff's sister! While we've been traveling, Fletch and Oscar have been spending time with their best bud Murray at Jeff's parents house.



We started the summer off with Fletcher's first birthday!! He got a little spoiled...probably my fault...but he had lots of fun opening all his presents!


hmmm...what do we have here??


Ball!!!! All his new toys:)


Fletcher experienced his first 4th of July with us this year! Not surprisingly, curious puppy that he is, he wanted to GET the fireworks! Silly:)





June and July have been busy but Fletcher has still had time to work on his agility. He loves going on his morning walks with me or going to the park with both of us at night. We've trained him to go through the jungle gym all on his own! He's such a smart puppy!!





Fletch isn't a big fan of the heat we've been having the last couple weeks. He usually makes it to the park, runs to catch his ball a couple times, then is ready for a rest.









That's all for now. We'll update at the end of the summer!

Slackers with a blog

It's been far too long since a Fletch update, we are severe slackers but now that spring is here we are super motivated. 

We've been staying really busy and he's been along for 99% of the ride.  We just ran the Fargo half-marathon last weekend (5-21) and he was our training buddy for a lot of the training runs.  No animals were allowed in the race, plus the pace and distance were more than he's used to....All the work, none of the glory! Ang did take a picture with his race medal though, he earned it.  He was the pace setter on our training runs, and LOVES to run with us- well for him it's more of a prancing-trot while we tumble along behind him gasping for oxygen. The only thing he likes more than running on the trail is stopping to see if every dog and child along the way wants to be his friend.

 This is Fletch's lookout to the front of the house where he will monitor the neighborhood activity and let us know if it displeases him.  Below, he's getting some neighborhood watch help from my parents' dog Murray.

 

Oscar getting some window time with me and Fletch.

 

 

He has a very convincing demeanor when he wants something. On the left side of the picture below, you can see his friend Charlie's nose.  I think Fletch has more friends than I do.

The waiting line at the chow hall.  Whenever he exits his kennel, he has to take out all the toys that were in with him. Usually he will try to grab 2 or 3 in his mouth at a time.  It usually takes him awhile to get them positioned in a manner that they will all fit, but he will not go downstairs until all his toys are out. This is a dog that knows what he wants.

Ang insisted on an ugly Christmas sweater picture. I came to his rescue and promptly removed it, I could tell he was embarrassed. 

 He absolutely LOVED the snow this winter, but I think he's glad to see it gone so he can smell all the new spring stuff.  He thinks shoveling is a fun game where he gets to bite the shovel and then run from the snow when I throw it at him.

 

He is such a sweetheart, but also has a mischievous side. We will sometimes leave him out in the house if we are gone for short periods of time, but every once in a while he will do something dumb.....like chew up a highlighter on the couch, or eat the stuffing out of the couch, or pull the stuffing out of the pillows, or....well let's just say he has a thing for stuffing!

It's been a busy few months and I've been meaning to write, we've had a lot of fun so far and have been very busy.  Fletch is doing great, I probably have a unique story for each day of his life, he's been quite the go-getter.  He has graduated his puppy dynamics class (6 week puppy basic obedience), and last Tuesday we started the next series of obedience classes.  The puppy class had a chute, tunnel, teeter-totter, and bar jump to play with after class and fletch goes bonkers over the agility stuff.  He tears through the tunnel and chute and likes to jump the bar.  He's not allowed to jump up, so any chance he gets to be invited to jump he takes it!  The trainer is really good and she has an agility class that we'll likely get him into after this round of classes is up.

Puppy Dynamics

I think Fletch has more friends than I do, we went to the dogpark a few weeks ago for the first time.  I was a little nervous because he still gets a little too personal with dogs he doesn't know, but he did great.  The first time there were maybe 8 or 9 dogs that all ran around in a pack and he was welcomed right in.  People for the most part are pretty good there, I was nervous that some bozo might bring their aggressive dog there, but so far so good. We keep a pretty close eye on who he's playing with there. There seems to be a regular crowd that hangs out there every day.  He did get a little to personal with one dog who politely showed him that will not be tolerated.  Although he was perfectly fine, he stayed pretty close to me after that encounter, until his Malamute friend "Klondike" arrived.  He also has befriended a female boxer that's a year old, her name is lola.  They seek each other out amongst the group and play together at the dog park.

Fletch and Lola

Oscar and Fletch are growing closer every day.  Fletch likes to tease Oscar and Oscar likes to boss Fletch around.  Oscar wasn't feeling good the other day and Ang said Fletch was very concerned and cuddled up next to him.  Fletch has made great friends with my Aunt and Uncle's dog Shammy.  He's a big golden retreiver, they played until exhaustion....on Fletch's part.

Fletch's friend from class, Kirby the Westie

Oscar, Fletch, Shammy

Oscar and Fletch

Murray and Fletch being spoiled in the bed

Murray likes Fletch for about 5 minutes, then again when Fletch chills out.  When it's downtime, he either likes to crash out on one of our laps or by our feet.  If he's got enough energy left, he'll patrol the window to ensure we don't have any unwanted visitors.

Checking out his backyard

Uh, excuse me. Move along please. Don't touch my ball.

His kitchen spot

His ugly couch spot

When he crashes, he crashes hard

He's starting to fill out as you can see in the watchdog picture.  Getting some muscle definition too and isn't looking so scrawny any more. He's still just got the one nutty so his middle name remains 'Uno'.   He had seen his first snowfall and we decided to take a little walk in it.  I don't even think he noticed.

Looks like boating season is over :( We wanted to point out that this was lame!

Fletch Uno

Fletch the Chef.....and Fletch the Ostrich

Fletch the chef
So, not the most dedicated chef, but he's learning!

Fletch the Ostrich
Dig a little deeper little fella, there's at least one more toy in the toybox that isn't scattered all over the floor!

Fletch plays fetch

Sooooo, this is a ten week old boxer's version of fetch :)

Fletch's 1st camping trip to Lake Metigoshe on the Canadian boarder

Fletch enjoying his backyard and playing with his brother this morning

Oscar trying to get away!!