And so we left the compound... for a jaunt into the outer world...

Fishville AKA Fisherman’s Village in River City AKA Punta Gorda is where we went around ten thirty in the late morning.

The reasoning for making the last minute trek was an Easter egg hunt for canines, although our own noble one, Skipper of the Bichon persuasion did not participate, he as we were, were purely spectators.

To be honest though, we didn’t really watch all that well, it being way too crowded.
You see, the field of participants was quite well filled with every breed of dog you could possibly think of from the wee Chihuahua to a giant Mastiff, and all breeds in between spaniels and labs and goldens and dachshunds, and one woman even had seven Maltese all with matching pink gingham scarves and there were quite a few Yorkies too, which we have a soft spot for, (since we had two Yorkies, years ago that lived very long lives to 14 and 16 years old, respectively) and let us not forget the canines of mixed bred ones of multi-heritage that were also there.

And the competition was fierce and we are all lovers not fighters and so we watched from afar. A very large Easter bunny was ensconced in a very size appropriate chair for the ones who wished to take pictures with their puppy on his lap; children did sit on him too, not unlike Santa at Christmas time. But when they sit on Santa they request gifts and on an Easter bunny I suppose the request would be where are the eggs hidden or could my Easter basket be stuffed with all those chocolate goodies that are now considered excellent for warding off many ills including cancer since the dark chocolate is loaded especially with anti-oxidants, or perhaps not…dogs can’t eat chocolate and kids really don’t care about that sort of stuff, PS dogs don’t talk, i.e. to strangers, kidding!

It is true, the barking at times was provoked by the canines ability to communicate in only that vocal perspective with others of their kind… but as I have mentioned before, Skipper has an ear bleeding high pitched screechy one that even being his adoptive, chosen parents, gets us upset when it is expelled from his vocal cords!

Some other four-footed cronies of his appeared to come from the same mold of the need for that high pitched vocalizations, but there was one small difference here… more of the people understood the behavior and were not as angry or upset as the non-dog owners would be, an odd form of relief.

Reassurance with a loving pet is not that different from training your child to behave with love and patience, and so I repeat when Skipper is quiet that he is a good boy that he is well behaved and I smile with two thumbs up!
Sometimes treats are enlisted to reinforce this positive behavior, but we ran out quickly, since I only brought three Milk Bones. We have a nifty water carrier for him that he has had since a pup. Hubby even keeps baggies in his pocket in case they are needed to dispose of solid waste, which Skipper until today had never done within the air opened mall like atmosphere of the venue, but today he did and Hubby was prepared for the procedure of a baggie turned inside out used for pickup and turned outside in and than tied tightly and tossed into a receptacle as I blocked the view from others possibly stepping into it; teamwork.

After we went up and down and all around trying to maintain a socialization process for our loving pal, and then we chose to have a lovely lunch at the outdoor portion of our favorite restaurant there, and except for Skipper and an older black poodle occasionally chatting and Skipper also calling out to the participants which we could observe from our location above the center stage, other than that he was a very well behaved child/dog!

When with four-footed or two footed children one should always have plans for attack in all embarrassing/misbehaving situations.
The best way to conquer most, is to remove the child/dog from the problem and scold or discuss other ways to act in such matters…see not too different for either, hmm?
Or thrust them into the midst of it and keep reassuring them that all is well and that screaming is not a proper way to talk to anyone…

On that concept of who knows what, allow me to be the first to wish you all a very happy good night and ask you all kindly to count all your blessings and share those overages and we will too!

And next time please be here or be square, ya hear?