Liam and Jersey

I think the single biggest highlight of the Canada vacation for Liam was the meeting of Jersey the dog. Jersey is a Chocolate Labrador (hence the name Jersey Milk,) and is the first dog that Liam has had any extended contact with. Before the holiday, he liked dogs, but he mostly like pointing at them and yelling DOG.

As you can see here, Jersey is a dog that likes to get up close and personal.
I think that Labradors have quite a good reputation for being a dog that is very good with children. I think my sister's dog can cement this in fact. This dog takes all kinds of crap from three little kids bugging her all day and never bats an eye. Tails pulled, constant prodding, and at least one instance of Liam trying to ride her.

Liam also took great pleasure in telling the dog what to do. I would like to think this was the first time in his life where he was giving the commands to something that carried them out without question, then I realized that I probably follow orders even better than the dog...

I am pretty sure that Jersey also quite liked Liam, but she is a pretty friendly dog as I mentioned. My sister took this photo, and I think it is one of my current favorites.
Liam also learned that dogs can be all about action. On the first day or so, we went out in front of the house and he observed my sister playing energetically with Jersey. Liam learned that you can do more with dogs than pat them.
He got the courage to kick the ball over to Jersey himself.
And eventually brought another ball into play, as he worked his throwing skills. Note the ball in flight, this ball is actually Super Mario's head. At this point Liam also expanded his ever growing English vocabulary to include the command "JERSEY GET IT! GET IT!"
After all this action, poor old doggy had enough hubbub and went for a little rest. One thing Liam did NOT learn from this experience is that dogs (and parents) do not have nearly as much energy or staying power as a 3 year old. I think he would have happily played for another 2 or 200 hours if Jersey had been up for it.