Happy Halloween!

We had a fun-filled halloween with Hinck...if he could talk maybe he would say it was a bit TOO fun-filled, but I think he had a good time. We started with playgroup (a Saturday staple at this point) which is always pretty exhausting, even if you play with the small dogs. Then after some napping, we drove Hinck up to the city to visit with Sally and Adam. He stayed back while the four of us did some walking around the Mission, but then we came back for dinner and costume-readying.

As you can see, Hinckley was an adorable pumpkin. Tyler and I were farmers - he was the crop :) Once Julie and Julia (Sal and Ad) were reading to hit the town, we all got in the car and drovS to the middle of the mission. There, we walked around and walked to the Castro...being told about every three seconds that Hinck was THE CUTEST THING EVER! in shrieky voices. Poor guy had to deal with goblins and bloody people and even Skrek petting him and getting in his face and he took it amazingly well. Wagged his tail the whole time!

We did some more walking and stopped at a party (more Hinck fans made) and then called it a night at last. It was probably the longest day of Hinckley's life (he stayed up until 1:30!) Needless to say, he has been sleeping all day long. He was a great sport, and if there were ever any worries, I think we can safely say he is "socialized". I just hope he was having fun...we tried to make him comfortable and fed him tons of treats (dog treats, not people treats :P) along the way so I think he was happy. Hooray for Halloween!

In other news, Hinck's classes are continuing to go well. We're learning about impulse control and how to teach him to go to certain places by associating them with positive reinforcement (kibble) - stuff like 'touch' (sustitute for come), 'go to your mat/place,' and 'with me' or 'by my side' (substitute for heel.) If we teach him the mat trick well enough, then I can hopefully teach him when its ok to get on the couch (mat's there) vs. when its not (mat's absent.) I'm excited about that. Just got to keep him from eating the mat (and the couch for that matter) for now.

-Jo (not sure why it reads as Tyler)