Playing and Training

I snapped this God-awful picture today on my phone of Buddy and Marge's short play session. I told them both to sit, and the picture WAS a cute one until they moved. But hey, what can you do, there's always next time. And at least it shows how handome Buddy is, even if Marge looks like a scary demon-dog behind him. They moved onto the grass a short bit after and played their usual games. Marge looks very "loose" around him so I think she's having a good time.

I took a walk over there before Rally, figuring he'd be outside. I hadn't really walked Marge all day, so the walk combined with the play was a nice one-two punch for her. I am so thankful that Buddy's owners let Marge into the yard. I think I'm going to write them a thank you note - these play sessions are so good for Marge and I am thrilled that she has had the opportunity to meet such a nice dog.

She also met the daughter of one of my paper customers as we were leaving. The brightside of it was that she was very happy to meet the girl, sniffing and curious. The flipside was that she practically dragged me up to her. We need some control! (But I'd still say the good outweighs the bad here.) She pet her a little bit, fed her a treat and we were on our way. Marge is more comfortable around respectful kids than anyone else, I think. It was a good encounter.

Afterwards was Rally class: I think it went well. We stayed off to the side like last time and utilized the cheese-filled Kong when we were just waiting around for our turn to navigate the course. Marge was a little nervous of the wind blowing things around outside, but she performed well. No problems with other dogs, either. She was not allowed to interact, but was in close quarters with some of them. I explained to a few people about her shyness and fear problems inside the building and that was why we were over on the side.

All of the 'front' work paid off this week as Marge performed a whole bunch of them with no problem tonight. We need to work on pace changes now, a lot.

There's rain in the forecast again forfor this week, so I'm going to hope and pray that we can get an agility class in on Tuesday. I miss it so much after two weeks, and I know she does, too!