Day 2

Sunday was day two with Denise. It was just as good as day one. I liked that there were so many different dogs there, we got to see how Denise tailored the exercises for the specific dogs the she was working with. I love stuff like that. I am such a geek.

Since I had that annoying front problem where Vivre wanted to stand at an angle instead of directly in front of me I decided we would work on that. I got up there and Vivre sits perfectly. Surely that was a mistake. I move and she's dead center again. We did this several times and while she did get a little crooked she never got that far off. What the Hell! Of course that turned out to be a good thing since we then switched to heeling where I discovered that I CAN"T WALK A STRAIGHT LINE! How did that happen? Of course Vivre forges but that's my fault, it is easier to see her if she is forward and I have inadvertently trained that, but my walking in to her is the reason she gets wide on me. So I come home today and start to work and I still can't walk a straight line. I am walking along the tile lines on my floor and I get so busy walking along the lines I quit watching Vivre. I am going to have to figure this out. I also need to learn how to work with a leash. If I can handle 25 foot lunge lines I should be able to handle a 7ft leash, but apparently I can't. I picked up a thinner leash that Brydon made and I am hoping that will help. She had some very nice collars and leashes. I need to measure Vivre's neck for her collar.

I also bought new toys. I was just tickled when I walked in and saw a table full of toys Denise brought. We got another French Linen tug since Vivre really likes those and Denise suggested we stick with that and I picked up a Gripper Flipper. So Vivre now has a frisbee we can tug with too. She loves it!

Denise also gave me a suggestion for teaching the blinds so that Vivre doesn't go too wide around the blinds and I don't have to fix it later. Which makes me glad that I have only done some basic work with going around object.

Darren showed up Sunday afternoon so Denise could watch the dogs work. She had a lot of good suggestions for Darren with Vivre, but Vivre did pretty well considering it was only the second time Darren had worked with her.

I'm feeling energized to get back to work. Just in time for winter :-) Vivre doesn't mind the cold near as much as I do. I will probably just have to suck it up and deal with it. I hope it isn't as bad as last winter. I couldn't handle that.