Every day we make time to hang out with Savage's friends, and usually we go walking at a few of our favorite spots around the area. Here Nala and Savvy are crammed in the back of my truck waiting patiently (?) to head over to Lace Lake to run wild in the grass.

Savvy is aquiring quite the collar collection. This is his new "tough guy" collar, which is 1" black leather with alternating spikes and studs. Again, I got this one (and another for our doggie friend Nala) from Morrco, and feel I was pretty lucky in getting all the collars the right sizes.

Savage's new blaze orange collar is designed for hunting dogs, but I just want him to be visible to hunters who could mistake him for a deer during the upcoming hunting season. This nylon SunGlo collar is 2" wide and coated with polyurethane to resist dirt and odor. It's also water repellent, though Savvy doesn't spend much time in the water this time of year. I spent only $9.99 on it through Morrco Pet Supply, which is one of my new favorite shopping sites.

To everyone who wished Savage well after his neuter surgery; thank you very much. It was quite an emotional experience for me, though my puppy still doesn't seem to realize anything is different. I've talked to dog owners who said their neutered dogs spent a lot of time licking the area and worrying over it, but Savvy never seemed to even notice. I took the stitches out about 10 days after the operation, and since then his swollen scrotum has been shrinking up. The only side effect he had was the loss of appetite and general lethargy from the medications, as explained in the "Neutered!" post previously. After those first two days, he returned to normal and has been his happy dane self ever since.
As the summer season winds down we are getting to spend a lot more time together, though we haven't been grouse hunting this year like we did last September. Instead, we go out walking in the woods and playing with our other doggie friends. Last winter my friends and I often took all the dogs out on the frozen lake and let them run wild in the snow, and I hope that we can do that again this winter. However, everyone seems to have either matured or grown an attitude since then, and there are a few males in our group that no longer get along as well. Savvy himself is still pretty patient and friendly, but he is less likely now to submit to other male dogs that try to push him around. He has gotten in a few scraps with a couple of the dogs we hang out with all the time (always a fight over shared food), and I find myself missing the times when he was truly a puppy and simply turned the other cheek. As always, though, he remains the big gentle boy with his family, and treats strangers like friends. We will all just need to commit time to more calm socialization between all the dogs this fall.