Poppy's first swim

Yesterday was a fun evening... We first took Poppy and Preeti-Gautam's dog Moca to Lake Austin. Redbud Trl has an amazing dog park, leash-free zone and places for dogs to enter and swim in the water. Of course all the dogs go crazy there. Poppy tried her first swim and it was incredible! At first she hung out at the shallow edges of the water tentatively, watching Moca play and trying to frolic around the edges. Then VIkram slowly lured her in with a treat and before we knew it, she was doing a little lap in the water. After Moca left to play with some other dogs, though, she lost interest and started growling at something in the water. We got the dogs home and shampooed them clean. They promptly rolled themsleves over on the grass to dry and started playing with each other.
AT first Moca had tried to assert himself over Poppy and we thought she was scared, but little did we know! She was licking his mouth and licking and licking till she had the big boy wrapped around her tiny paws. When they tried to tough it out over a bone-toy, Poppy got it at one point, put her paws on it and growled at Moca. He backed off! It was a first! 80+ pound alpha, aggressive Moca backing off from small, calm Poppy! Of course she lost interest in the toy as soon as he went away and she went to see what he was upto. The smart Moca pounced on the toy immediately and their games started again!
Finally in the evening we went to Triumph Cafe where you can take your dogs to and sit outside. Ally came too with Bobby. In the parking lot, Bobby and Poppy got into a puppy game of rolling on each other and wrestling with each other. At one point, Poppy had pinned him to the ground!! Finally mOca (who had been standing by pateintly) got tired of it and barked at Bobby menacingly. Moca then did the sweetest thing. After barking at Bobby, he went and checked on Poppy and licked her ears. It was soooooo sweeeeeet!!! Bobby finally lay down in submission in front of the two of them.... It was such a fun sight to watch!!