January 4, 2010

This morning we are rushing around to get stuff done before Deb Boswell with Bark Busters gets here. Mamaw asked me to please be a good girl while she’s here—she wants her to notice that she’s worked real hard to train me. When Deb came, I barked and acted somewhat inappropriate for a well trained dog. She refused to look at me or give me any attention. In fact, I didn’t even get a hello until I was sitting being quiet.

We began to go through the paces of what I’ve learned—even the “tricks.” They talked about where the problems were and how to train effectively to alleviate the problem. Boy, I’ll tell ya, it was a long 2 ½ hours I can tell you! Deb took me outside and showed Mamaw how to keep me from getting ahead of her on our walks. The woman nearly wore me out.

In the end, Deb told Mamaw she gave me an A. Mamaw was so proud of me. We’ve got some work to do yet and I can be quite stubborn but I’ll bet we get there in the end. We have leash work, come on command, stay on command and jumping up. Now you might think that isn’t very much, but trust me—it’s a lot! We’ll both be exhausted by the end of each day…

Poppy and Mamaw left me in my kennel for a while today and when they came home, they had a really pretty blue pad to sit on the couch for me instead of the towel. I like to chew on the towel and they are trying to get me to stop doing that so they got the pad. And a terrific new bone, made of some different kind of material. I really like that too!

So now I am tired. And, I am stubborn. I don’t want to have to do a single command she gives me for the rest of the day. It’s probably just best to leave me alone…