Albright Adventures: Jacksonville Zoo

Josh began pre-deployment leave on Tuesday and we have been having a great time together! Teddy sure has been getting spoiled by daily trips to the dog park, 3 2 mile walks, and lots of cuddle time in the evening. Wednesday we started off the day at the Jacksonville Zoo. It was a beautiful day- 80 degrees and sunny- no humidity and a light breeze! I have been so anxious for our little guy to arrive, but yesterday was really a blessing of time for Josh and I together without an agenda or any place we had to be! While we have enjoyed some other zoos a little more because of animal viewability, we found that we saw some animals we did not know existed during this trip and learned some really cool animal and habitat facts. The beauty of the garden areas was incredible as well. Josh, the photog, took about 500 pictures, and snapped some great shots! After a 2 hour nap for this tired Mama bear, we took Teddy to the park yesterday evening and had quite a scare! Teddy has become quite the swimmer. He will swim across lake bow wow without hesitation now and he will not stop swimming until we stop throwing him a ball. A rather rambunctious golden retriever puppy was quite fond of Teddy and dunked him under the water playfully while he was still out in the water quite deep- Josh was out looking for another ball to throw for Teddy and I saw him get dunked but thought he would come up soon- sure enough he came up for air briefly and the golden dunked him again- this time I saw no sign of Teddy coming up or really any activity under the water. I began screaming Josh's name and running toward the water and was about to run in after him when this heroic park visitor ran in after Teddy without hesitation and swooped the drenched pup up out of the water- her shoes and clothes were soaked and she brushed it off like it was "nothing". I'm sure he was only under the water for a moment, but it seemed like an eternity and we were so grateful to this sweet woman for selflessly rescuing our pup. Thankfully, after resting a bit, Teddy resiliently went back into the water after another ball to end the evening on a positive note. This morning while he was at the park and retrieving balls in the water he got very nervous when another dog would swim near him and wisely chose to swim the other direction when a big dog was after the same ball as he was. What a pup!