New Year, Same Fun

I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful New Year! We celebrated Woody's 9th birthday on New Year's Eve. I still can't believe he's that old! I got him when he was nearly 5 and he has just as much energy now as he did then. I don't even want to fathom what it will be like when he starts slowing down.

The morning after the birthday. Ultimate relaxation.

A lot of people create New Year's resolutions, but it seems that just as many people complain about how stupid New Year's resolutions are. I like to live by the rule that you don't have to wait for a fresh start. Whenever "now" is, you can change your mindset and create goals. I get that it seems cliche to create resolutions when most people throw them out the window a few months in, but the idea of a fresh start to the start of the New Year can be a good benchmark. For example, maybe you want to lose weight as your overarching goal. Instead of thinking of the big picture, think of how you can make small steps to get there. Each month have a new, smaller goal that is related to health and wellness - in January you make it a goal to go spinning twice a week, February you swap soda for tea, March you say no to fast food, etc. Doing these things by a monthly basis is much more manageable and can give you some new perspective on what you like and don't like about trying to lose weight rather than going cold turkey on everything all at once and buying expensive gym memberships.

But enough on that tangent. Every year I try to think of some new things to do with my dog and reflect on some of the fun we had in the year prior. This moreso happens because his birthday falls on New Year's Eve. In 2014, I said I would take him to 3 new dog parks. I didn't do that - I know, bad dog mom. I did, however, take him to the new Cleveland dog park a few times before it got too cold for him to walk all the way down there. And we went on much longer walks and runs than we did in 2013. I guess I learned that if he is getting exercise around here and he is socializing with other dogs at doggie daycare and out in the park in my building there's no point in driving him all over the city.

Since his energy level hasn't changed, I'm going to continue to focus on doing as much activity with him as I can. Things to improve upon are:

• Training - I should be doing this daily for about 5-10 min. a day. Most days it happens but some it just doesn't.
  
• Fetch - This happens daily, so we will continue
• Dog parks - I don't want to promise that I'll get him to non-downtown dog parks, but I need to take him to the downtown one more.
• Trail walks - This one turned out to be trickier than I expected. One time I took him to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park thinking it would be fine, but he was a complete tick magnet. However, there have been other Metroparks trails that were nice and clear.
• Having people over - How does this relate to my dog? Well, if you know anything about Jack Russells, you probably know that they are SUPER territorial dogs. Woody is probably on the highest end of the spectrum with this. But, he is very smart and once he gets to know someone in the house he does okay. The problem is, my only consistent house guest is my boyfriend, and Woody actually gets excited when he comes over. When unfamiliar people arrive, I have to warn them to just let him be, that he's not like most dogs that you can just walk over to and pet - if you do that he will try to bite you. The best way to mediate the situation for me is to get him to focus on me and on a "job" (aka training games or fetch) so he's not overly anxious about the guests. This year, I'd like to start having more friends over to help me get him to relax. He'll probably never let a new person just go up and pet him, but at least I can work on getting him to leave them alone. 

What are some goals you have this year? Anything your dog can be a part of?