Day 233

Yippy! Sanity did articles outside with only a tiny bit of guidance from me on the first article. She was working with a stiff breeze, strong spring smells and several loose dogs. After I gave her a very slight leash correction for being too interested in the taboo article she went on to get the correct article 3 times. The positions were 3 o'clock and 5 o'clock. We have just about completed the clock exercise and I am betting that we will be moving on to three articles next Saturday.

Sanity helped out with the first lesson while Tyler got to walk around the yard in the company of my student's teenage daughter. They wanted to slip him into a carry sack and steal him away. Guess you might say he was a hit.

Second lesson and she did an awful job of demonstrating the place command, by basically claiming she didn't have a clue about what the command or signal meant. Much to her disbelief, I actually upped the ecollar pressure and made her do it anyway. Her response later was to yell when I told her to sit at a distance. P.S., I wasn't using the ecollar at all. All I could say at that point was, "busted". The next 3 times I needed her to demonstrate the remote sit she did a very nice and very quiet job of it.

Diane's Doga class was much nicer this week. With the wonderful weather, we held it outside just like all the other classes. There was this one thing we were supposed to do that called for the dog to be sitting in front with their backs to us. We had to call dog to front. The instructions then called for us to step around behind dog and put one foot on each side of dog's back legs. Do a, b & c, but when you do c, rub your hands down the dog from shoulders to legs. Cradle dogÂ’s front legs in your arms, between dogs elbow & ankle and lift dog into sitting position as you come upright, so dog has nice stretch. I was doing the exercise from a chair so that meant Sanity had to come front and then turn and then sit with her back to me.

Talk about an argument. She was totally and completely convinced I was wrong and that under no circumstances should she sit with her back to me. Then it was a case of, "okay, I'll sit that way. But you won't like it because I am going to slump or hip sit or scoot back under your chair."

Picky me, I wouldn't accept any of those offerings and in the end we managed the exercise three times. Each time we did it, Sanity became a little looser and more trusting of me and what we were doing. I like this stuff, but am willing to bet my reasons for liking it are a universe away from why others like Doga.

The next lesson came to a bad end since I sent the student home without doing any work on the grounds they had arrived totally unprepared to work. Hey, he hadn't done a lick of work all week with the dog and there was no way I was going to be a party to his using the ecollar to teach new material when they hadn't done last week's assignment.

The very final session of the day was the beginnings with the biggest Yorkie I have ever seen in my life. I really don't believe this critter is 100% Yorkie. He is bigger than an Australian Terrier and at 10 months hasn't even finished growing. I'm betting he is really a YorkiePoo since his coat has an awful lot of curl to it.
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And now for the misbehavor of the day we bring you:

At 7 a.m. this morning I couldn't believe what I was seeing. That damn bitch was back in the flower bed yet again. I very likely would not have been lucky enough to catch her in the act except for the fact that the weather has taken such a wonderful turn I had the office door open and heard a very suspious sound. So rather than just get up and go outside to check, I picked up the remote, set it on 6 constant and with fingers on both buttons when to peek out the window. Sure enough, there she was digging a hole in the middle of the crocus bed. My fingers just clamped down on the remote.

Well, she let out such a yelp and started dashing back and forth in the garden. All at once, she whipped around, lined up and launched herself. It looked as if she had just sprouted wings and she floated up almost four and a half feet to shoot through an opening that is only 15" high. As she landed on the ramp my fingers came off the buttons and I turned my back so when she came in the office I wasn't even looking in her direction. For the next couple of hours she was most concerned about my well-being. Where she had been and what she had been doing was never mentioned.

While she will never again be able to get in and out of the flower bed that way again, I dare not say the battle is over. My son just nailed lattice work up to close up the opening. She may be determined, but I am more determined.