h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

As I mentioned I don't walk this , Scooter. I won't say I CAN'T do it, but I really don't enjoy it. His sole exercise is chasing the in the house. We don't play in the back yard much because it's over grown with weeds and not that nice. Also, there's a pool and this dog can't swim! He fell in twice shortly after I got him while chasing a toy in the back yard and he just flailed in the water and I had to pull him out. Fortunately he's small and I was able to pull him out by the harness. If Shel had fallen in and couldn't swim I'd have had to jump in after him, I'm afraid cause he was bigger.

I did take Scooter in the pool a couple of times this summer. I don't go in the pool myself much anymore because I'm so busy with my mom and Cactus Club lately and I'm concerned with sun damage to my skin. But I did go in a couple of times this summer and I got Scooter in with me. He didn't like it, but he did catch on to swimming and how to get out of the pool if he's in it. It was only a couple of times though and I don't know if it sunk in so that he could do it again if he fell in by mistake. So we don't play in the back yard much.

The other thing we don't do much is go to the dog park. You'd think it was because of his dog-aggression, but that's not it. He does OK with dogs at the dog park when he's off leash. He mostly ignores them and chases the ball.

No, the reason we don't go to the dogpark is because Scooter gets car sick even on the short trip to our local dogpark which is close by! He first started to get car sick on the way to our dog training classes. The class was a ways away down a kind of windey road. I got a prescription for a sedative which I had to give to him 1 1/2 hours before we went out. If I didn't give it to him early enough, he'd throw up in the car on the way to the class. It didn't sedate him too much.

But so far, it's too much trouble to give him a sedative 1 1/2 hours before going to the dogpark. I don't usually plan my dog park outings that far in advance. We did do it once. He didn't throw up in the car and he wasn't too sedated to play at the park, but we haven't done it since.

Z