Easter 2016

It’s been many years since I thought it would be fun to let Auggie hunt Easter Eggs. He was such a sniffy dog, always using his nose – wouldn’t it be funny to put a treat in an egg, hide it, and have him sniff them out? In some ways we were doing “Nose Work” in our house and backyard before it was a thing people paid money for to title in. Auggie really loves this game, to the point of getting excited when he sees me get the eggs and baskets out, because he knows we’re going to play. Also, it doesn’t hurt that he gets a bunch of cookies when he finds the eggs, either.

So away we went and Auggie started cruising along.

Georgie came over to play with us all. Last year she ran around stealing eggs from everybody else, especially Auggie, who was having trouble with his old man teeth popping the eggs open. But this year I was going to hoard all of Auggie’s eggs for him. If he found one and tried to open it, but couldn’t, I would step in and help him open it, then drop it in his basket after he got the cookie.

So Miss Georgie had to find her own eggs. But being Auggie’s little niecelette, she’s pretty good at it, too.

Payton found one, whoo!

Meanwhile Auggie just rocked and rolled and grabbed everything he could sniff out or see.

My sister came over with her Henri to hunt eggs, because my yard is way bigger and has more spots to hide eggs in.

It was a bit hard for Henri to stay focused on the eggs when the entire yard smells like Payton pee.

But he did a good job of finding all his eggs, anyway.

Kaner wasn’t very good at the egg hunting. He tripped over an egg and my mom declared he “found” it, then opened it for him, thinking if he figured out there were cookies inside, he might understand the game. She grossly overestimated a puppy brain.

Payton, too, is just a little attention deficit; his constant go-go-go makes it hard for him to spend time actually opening the eggs. Finally we came to a compromise where he finds them, and just like I do with Auggie, I open them for him. This worked pretty well as Payton started looking for an egg, flopped down with it, and then stared at me expectantly to come open it. I think in Nose Work we would call this an “alert” so whatever.

I am happy to say that Auggie restored his title of Egg Hunting Champion this year after I protected all his eggs from the thief.

Not surprisingly, Georgie came in second place.

Payton actually found a decent handful this year.

And Kane “found” a whopping two, by which I mean my mom gave him the first and he picked up a second one for about a half second, and we declared he “found” that one, too.

Henri, of course, found all of his eggs.

All the little shelties with their Easter baskets.

Then, because I’m an ambitious dog trainer, I went for all five. This is not Photoshopped, we actually got all five lined up and sitting on the deck with their baskets. It wasn’t easy, but it happened. Meanwhile, the little black dog in the center is only 18 weeks old, and that big one on the end and my big Payton sometimes like to try to eat each other’s faces – but for Easter, we nail beautiful harmony.

Then I pulled out the bunny ears I bought at the Dollar Spot at Target. I may have only bought one St. Patrick’s headband, but I made no such mistake with bunny ears. I bought three pair.

Big handsome Auggie thinks his bunny ears are hilarious and Easter is awesome.

Payton, for the first time ever when he’s got something on his head, doesn’t look like he’s being beaten to death!

And the bunny ears were really too big for Kaner’s head so this was quite interesting to get them to balance and then hurry up and take a photo. But somehow, with the magic of Easter, we again made it work.

I didn’t take any photos, but after all our guests went home, I got the eggs out, stuffed them again, and let Auggie have his very own egg hunt. Just me following him with his basket, letting him find every single egg without any pressure from any other dogs running around, getting all the cookies. I think that was Auggie’s favourite part.

Happy Easter from all the little bunnies!