Day 204

No question about it, the protective gene has kicked in. Last night in class I had to resurrect one of my oldest commands. "Do that again and I will rip your face off" said while I have a very firm grasp of the muzzle, and with my face, teeth bared, right in her face. I suspect that I will be making that correction at least a couple of times a day for the next month or so. By then she will have gotten the necessary exposure to all sort of stuff and will have learned how to tell the difference from something that is just different, benign but out-of-place or a threat to our safety.

Stranger on scooter, coming out of an office fell into that category. Hackle up and growl. Find out you are about to have your face ripped off by the big boss. Jump out of van, spot an empty crate in the parking lot where it "shouldn't" be, hackle up and growl. Get laughed at and told to "get over it". Once she has enough experience under her belt to show proper discernment, she is truly going to be awesome. I love her boldness even if it is frequently misplaced right now.
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The change was made and when she was sent for the first article at 11 o'clock, she moved out fast, sure and picked it up and returned. Trouble was she didn't bother to do any sniff test at all. Sort of what I had figured would happen. Then the article was placed at 12 o'clock. Out she shoots, stops dead in her tracks, looks and then sure enough picks the taboo article. This mistake was repeated 4 times in a row before it occurred to her to actually sniff the two articles. Once she did that she managed to get the correct one.

I had her repeat that one on the grounds that since I had started to move in to correct and I am too slow these days and she is too fast the original intent on her part had been to grab the taboo article. I think it was a good choice on my part since the second time she very carefully sniffed both articles and then rather pointedly selected the correct one. That makes it a good place to stop.

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Friday is always nail and errand day. One of our stops was to Radio Shack for some batteries for my camera. Since the package was light and easy to carry I thought to have Sanity carry it out to the van for me. UGH! Only my being more stubborn than she made it happen. It was a case of take the package in mouth, walk about 5 steps and then spit it out. Get told to retrieve it, do so and then walk an additional 5 or 6 steps and once again spit it out. This went on all the way out of the store, up the sidewalk and to the van. So that will not be repeated until we have done enough practice in private to make sure there won't be the need for a serious correction in public. Okay, so I goofed and jumped the gun with that one, but at least she didn't get to be successful about not carrying it.