Thanks for that Amber. As discussed with you, Loki & Jontay do well together, except for a bit of jealousy from Loki, which is now far less than it used to be. In fact, Jontay will insist on going out into the back garden with Loki, & it is amusing to see the two of them mooching about, noses stuck together on the ground as they sniff through the leaves. Jontay enjoys being with him, but gets a bit overwhelmed by his size at times, & then snaps at Loki to tell him to clear off, which nowadays he usually does. Loki is actually turning into a lazy boy ...he seems to have brought down his energy level to Jontay's, so the two of them just snooze away most of the day & a lot of the evening ...but perhaps that is normal as he gets older? I thought he would get more energetic, but he is getting less. Totally chilled out! I keep thinking there must be something wrong with him & wondering if he needs to see the vet. He eats very well, is very alert, & looks fine, but is it normal for a puppy of almost five months to enjoy snoozing so much? It seems he has taken his lead from Jontay, who at six years old, does enjoy snoozing the day away. I suppose Loki could just be a very laid back Golden. His highest energy level is between 5 30pm-8.30pm, but even then, he really doesn't want to go on his evening walk ...just wants to mooch about the garden with Jontay. I just thought that getting him a more active playmate, might get him off the floor a bit & out into the garden for a proper romp about. I would have no problems with adding this Gordon into the mix, but I do have to take my husband's feelings into consideration. So we will visit with the Gordons, as I have arranged to do that, & I will ask her if she has an older girl that she is looking to rehome. She did rehome a retired breeding girl a few months ago, at 8 years old, but I would not want to take on an adult of that age & expect her to motivate a lazy puppy. We had two Maremmas in the past, & they were wonderful together, but incessant barking was a problem with them.

Is there a place you could take Loki to that is more in the country where he would get more motivated to nose around and run with a long leash? Finding a place like that allows him to move more and explore nature much more freely than walking a normal subdivision walk. Classes also help bring out excitement too. My DH is a lot like yours. I do all the "dog" things, I do the training, walking, the corrections the grooming and feeding, so the dogs mind me and we do a lot together. When they were with DH they pushed his buttons and wouldn't walk..became deaf and dumb and were allround pain in the butts for him. He is mush and talks to them as you would a tiny baby, with that pleading voice that my dogs frankly hear and label him as a push-over. He got where he didn't want to take them on walks or anywhere I wasn't going to be with him. Soooo we changed our routine. Now He does the nightly feeding, then He is the one who takes everyone outside for a romp and games of ball throwing. I still do the walks, but now when he goes to the Country place and I must work he takes the dogs, where they swim and run the fields with him and they have learned to depend more on him thus mind him much better. Really had to push that he start taking command with them, and when he did, they immediately started listening and minding him more. It has made not only the dogs but my sweet DH bond much closer. Dogs really do need to know that Humans are their leaders and DH just had to step up and assume that role.

Sorry this was long, but possibly something in this might help you get Loki and your DH to bond closer.

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I take Loki to the park every alternate day, in place of his morning walk, & we spend about 1.5 hours there doing some off-leash training & recall. I walk him through the town on his walk lead & then change him onto a 28 foot long training lead when we enter the park. For the first half hour he runs around exploring, through the forest & the gardens, then the next half hour I do recall with him ...I hide behind trees while he is exploring, then call him & he comes looking for me. The last half hour when he is slowing down a bit, I take him off lead & walk around with him. We go to a certain shady spot, out of the sun, & play a game of fetch & roll around on the ground together for a bit, then the long training lead goes back on as we walk back toward the road, then the short lead, & walk back through town where he enjoys being petted. Loki really loves those outings every second day, & I enjoy them.

On the other days, we walk around the neighbourhood & I vary the route every walk., but he is becoming increasingly difficult to walk because the moment we get out the front door, he sits down & doesn't want to move. I have to literally lift him to his feet! Then he keeps wanting to lay down everytime we hit grass & hard to get him up & going again. This morning, I avoided all areas of grass, so he did the laying down on a pavement against a fence in the shade. He just does not seem to want to walk,on the pavement anymore, & just wants to flop down on the grass. I was thinking that maybe the pavement was hot on his feet, but he does the same on his evening walk. This started a few days ago, & I have no idea what the problem is. We do have a lot of large-breed dogs running & barking aggressively behind fences at him on our walks, so I am wondering if he is now scared of walking around the neighbourhood because of that. It that possible?

This evening I went on the walk, with my husband taking Loki & me taking our papillon. Loki's behaviour was appalling. He kept trying to jump all over Jontay & my husband could not control him at all. So I took charge of Loki, whilst my husband took Jontay. He walked quite a way ahead of us, to prevent Loki from jumping all over Jontay again, so Loki then kept pulling to catch up to them. When we did get together again, Loki immediately started jumping onto him again. My husband tried to get Jontay out of the way, then Loki leapt up on my husband. Goodness knows what people driving by thought! Loki is well behaved during the day, apart from the effort to get him to go on walks. I know my husband doesn't like him ....none of the puppies we have had in the past, have ever behaved like this & my husband is starting to get really fed up with it ...he has had several skin tears on his arm from Loki, & yesterday Loki got too mouthy with him & my poor husband ended up with broken skin from his teeth. So I can't really blame him for not wanting to do anything with Loki, because he always seems to get injured. It doesn't happen to me as I have more control over him. Perhaps Loki can sense that my husband doesn't like him, & that's why he behaves so badly with him ...yet Loki is always very excited to see him come home from work & my husband always makes a fuss of Loki when he comes in.

Loki does Canine Good Citizen Foundation every Sunday morning, & my husband comes along too, but he gets quite stressed if Loki misbehaves ...usually when we first arrive & he is very excited. As the classes are a forty min drive away, it would be difficult to do more than one a week, as all other classes are held in the evening. Loki gets taken on a country walk or to the beach or river every weekend. He loves going places in the car, but I could not do that every day of the week, as Jontay cannot go with us, due to the way Loki behaves with him when we go out. He is mostly good with him at home.