Walking the dog

It was raining this morning when we took Gavin to his first "group" feeding therapy session, so we didn't stop at the park afterward. I didn't think anything of it, until this evening when we were eating dinner, Gavin said he wanted to go outside. I realized that except for walking to the car, he hadn't gone out at all today. So I said I'd take him for a short walk. But since I wasn't planning on going far, I thought we should try taking Jasmine too. So Terry came along to help out with Jasmine and Gavin. He handed Gavin the retractable leash for Jasmine, and off we went. Jasmine stopped a lot to pee, each time, with Gavin indicating "Jasmine go pee", (except he can't say "J" so it sounded more like "Davin go pee.") He held the leash the whole time, even breaking into a run sometimes when he felt like it, or when he needed to catch up to Jasmine. He had such a great time! The last time I gave him the leash to hold was several months ago, and he dropped it after just a couple of minutes. Watching him tonight, I was struck by how fast he's growing up, and how he can do so many things that I don't realize! For that matter, he understands a lot more than I realize, and remembers things that we don't think he would.

I know we need to give him things to do so that he feels like he's an important part of the family too, and that's what I learned tonight, is that I can ask him to do things I wouldn't normally think of, like hold Jasmine's leash so we can take her for a walk at the same time we go. I never used to take them out together, because it's just too much work for me to try to keep track of them both at the same time. But he did so well, I think we're going to start taking Jasmine with us more often. It just seemed to me like Gavin was such a big boy while walking the dog tonight. Guess he's growing up faster all the time!