Have you ever notice that once people have kids their blog take one of two routes? Either the blog withers on the vine from lack of attention or the blog becomes a photo blog about the kids with various over shares about diaper adventures. It Is cognizant of that fact that I write post #2 to focus on our new doggie 
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So, we wrapped up the summer with plenty of activity. We went out two more times with Marilyn and John to hunt for clams. John was particularly adept at spotting the clams squirt up from the sand. So, we came home with a huge number of clams. Many of which are now preserved in are freezer for a future frying.
This semester has been way more entertaining than previous semesters. I am doing a full-time externship in lieu of classes. I work 40 hrs a week at the Federal Court for the Honorable John C. Coughenour. I’ll need to dedicate a full post to that experience, but suffice it to say that it is incredibly interesting to see the goings on behind the chamber doors and to participate in the research behind and the drafting of judicial opinions. 
But, on to the dog. When we adopted DuoDuo he only had one vice – he was reactive to other dogs while on a lease. So, when he sees a dog he gets very excited, starts to bark, and wants to pull over to the other dog. Not terribly good qualities for a dog that get walked around the dog-filled Seattle waterfront.
When we adopted him, we got a voucher for a free training class at the Seattle humane society. One of the options was a “Reactive Rover” class. The idea of the training was to shrink the dog’s reactive bubble by training him to focus more on the owner and to associate seeing a other dog with a positive experience.
This training was accomplished by slowly introducing the dog to more and more stressful scenarios. At first the dog was intoduced to a stuffed dog,
then small dogs,
and big dogs. 
After 6 weeks of training we can report that duo duo has officially graduated reactive rover class. I think that the training has helped him become more focused. Just this morning I was walking within when jack jack the local black lab came out of the apartment. Duo duo reactions was to pull over but he didn’t Bark and once met he mellowed right out.
At the Park
The other benefit of taking him to the class is that we were finally confident that DouDou’s reaction was not the result of aggression but rather play. With this confidence, we brought him to th dog park to see how he would play. He does a great job and Saturday we took him to a really fun park.
The park is Luther Burbank Park on Mercer Island. This park is pretty cool. It is rather large, fully fenced , and it has access to the water.
We had a great time. Duo Duo breaks the stereotypes for Yellow Labs, he doesn’t dive into the water like the other dogs at the park. Instead, he prefers to hangout in shallows and play with the other dogs.
Nevertheless, the awesome thing about going to these parks is to play with the other dogs that are there.
These two chased each other around for a good 30 minutes.
And, who doesn’t love fat little bulldogs.