Day 41

Day 41

I think today was a bit more to Sanity’s liking. We managed to get in 10 retrieve reps before our first and only student arrived this morning. Then it was off to the vet for the last shot. This time she marched right in, actually hopped up on the scale and sat before I had a chance to give the place command, much less the sit. Smug little B, ever so serious about what she was doing as she sat there looking up at me. Much praise and then I called her off.

Because I was paying way too much attention to her and not any attention to what the scale had to say, I missed how much she weighed. Funny thing, the vet and vet tech were paying way too much attention to what Sanity was doing and not a one of us saw what she weighed. So I got to turn her around and send her back to the scale. This time she let me “play” too and I got to give both the place command and a sit command. Sanity took the place command as if she had been doing so all her life. There was not a bit of hesitation to leave my side and travel the 3 feet to the scale, hop up on it, turn and sit when told. She just looked bored by the entire thing. Anyway, she now weighs 35.1 pounds. Not too shabby for a 4 month old.

Just as I did last week, we went to Petco after the vet appointment was finished. Where I walked around with just her last week, this week I added a cart. So not only was she working on dealing with all the new sights, sounds, smells, people and things, but she was having to deal with a big shopping cart. That took some doing on her part. Along the way I had stopped to allow her time to figure out how to get untangled and this man came up and wanted to know if he could pet her. So I had my first chance to start the “go say hello” command. What a bust!!! She took one look at him, announced he was just a plain ordinary human and most definitely NOT interesting. Mind you she could have cared less if he petted her or walked on by. It was one in the same as far as she was concerned. Actually it was pretty funny.

He says, “Pretty pup, is it ok if I pet her.”

I say to him, “sure, she is here to learn stuff.”

Then I say to Sanity, “go say hello as I use the place signal.”

She looked up at me, looked at my hand, walked up to the guy, took one sniff and then rather pointedly turned her back and headed for the display she had her eye on to begin with. The look on the poor guy’s face, well all I could do was say, “sorry, but you just aren’t very high up on her interesting things list.”

He seemed truly surprised that she wasn’t interested in him since and here I quote, “I have two dogs of my own and I was sure she would be interested in smelling them.” I wanted to say, “huh?” But I assured him that she meant no disrespect, it was just that he was no way near as interesting as the other stuff around us.

She really give it her all, cause by the time we got home she was pooped and actually headed for the bedroom and her bed. Will do one more retrieve session before we call it a day. That will make 20 more reps with my placing her in a sit/stay, opening her mouth, placing the dumbbell carefully, gently caging her jaws closed while I praise. I suspect other a bored look she will continue to go with the flow.

Note to self: Must try and take a few pictures tomorrow.