Puppy Parent Failure

Yesterday I had spent the entire day working on this sign and Kobi happily slept the entire time I was painting indoors. Once I finished painting I needed to spray paint the letters and arrow on the sign with a reflective coating for greater night time visibility. So I decided to move everything outside and take advantage of the gorgeous 30 degree weather and work on tapping up the letters (which took hours!) so that I could spray paint them outside.

 Of course the dogs came outside with me. Scout slept either in the shade on the deck or just inside the doorway on the cool tiles. Kobi normally loves being outside, running around with balls and sticks and lying and chewing on things, but yesterday he was anxious. I wish I could have figured out why he was so anxious and I fully admit I was a bad puppy parent yesterday, I was more focused on getting these signs done that I wasn't actively paying attention to him and often had to do damage control rather than being proactive. Kobi has always barked a bit when out in the yard but has gotten much much better, yesterday was bad. I tried rewarding him for silence but would then get caught back up in what I was doing and he would bark again. So I brought down a rawhide bone AND a kong full of peanut butter. The kong maybe worked for a minute then he went back to pacing, growling and whining. I openly admit that I did fail him yesterday, he was uneasy and I didn't pay enough attention to him. I spent more time yelling "Enough" trying to get him to stop barking rather than working on keeping him from barking in the first place.

I'm sure I'm not along though in that we can't all be 100% vigilant at all times, sometimes we just want to relax and not have to worry about getting up every few seconds to respond to something your dog is doing. I plan on making up for yesterday by actually sitting out on the porch like I had planned to yesterday. Hopefully I can keep him quiet for most of the time. Yesterday also made me aware that if at some point this summer I want to just sit and relax in the yard, I'm going to have to do some serious work to get him to relax in the yard.