My California Boy!

I am enjoying watching Alvin enjoy the sunny, increasingly warm weather. It has remained uncharacteristically chilly here but I have found that if it's sunny and the weather is around 65 degrees or higher, Alvin loves to lie on the concrete and bask in the sun, prefrring to stay out there most of the day. My mom always thinks of things I miss and mentioned that he needs a dog bed out there so that he isn't sleeping on the hard concrete. I think he might enjoy the warmth of the concrete but I am going to put a bed out there for him and see if he will use it. My fear is that my other sun worshiper, Maddie will spot it and take it over too.

I recently wrote about Alvin's inability to locate where the source of any noise is coming from and to give a clearer example, when I call him, he will run into the room and instead of looking where he is most apt to find me (embarrassingly it's the couch), he will run past me, go into the kitchen, keep searching for me while I repeatedly call his name and it almost always requires me to repeatedly wave my hand near the ground where he is looking, in order for him to "find" me.  I can rarely rely on sound alone for him to find me.  On a side note, one can imagine how crucial it is to keep him on a leash.  When Alvin is out basking in the sun he likes to stay by the gate, which is the closest to the street and the driveway.  I think he prefers this spot because it's the hottest place.  I am able to see him through the cracks in the gate and I have noticed that when I pull up, he is unable to associate that with me having arrived home.  For any of you dog owners out there, you know how quickly dogs put together the sound of your car with you arriving home but after countless times of him hearing a car and then me arriving home, he still does not associate the two.  Even me opening up the front door, shutting it, and walking through the house does not indicate to him that I am home.  I know that he hears well based on his physical reaction to nearly any noise but every time I walk out there he looks like I have knocked him over with a feather because he's so surprised.  I can even walk the approximately 30 feet and get very close, or even touch him before he realizes where the source of the footsteps are coming from.  What all this tells me is that he would be an abysmal failure as a guard dog, not only because after seven months, I am still yet to hear him bark but he would repeatedly run right past the burglar.  My only hope would be if the robber tried to give him a treat and he bit his finger off.