Busy Bee

There is just too much to report. I have no idea how I am going to cram it into one post. Hmm..

Lets start with Sunday...

- Didn't do much during the day on Sunday, or at least nothing that was important enough for me to remember. Sadly, one of my elderly neighbors died during the night, so the block was in a bit of a funky state, naturally. I was outside speaking to Lovey, who Marge loves, when her archnemesis with the cap and sunglasses walks by. Sure enough, I was caught red handed with no treats and Marge flipped out again. We backed away, recollected ourselves. She did go up to him at one point, first gave a couple of "woo-woo-woo don't you dare look at me" kind of barks, then decided something on his pants tasted interesting. Wish it would have been left with that, but I didn't move away soon enough and he didn't heed my warnings when he was leaving and instead couldn't bring himself from looking in her direction and saying "BYE MARGIE!" so she woo-woo-wooed again.

Oh well, it's all my fault again. Can't even go in front of my house without treats.. better get that through my head.

- Rally was okay. Ran both courses beautifully, in my opinion, and was alright with the other dogs. She gave a growl to someone at the beginning of class - not sure who, but I think it was the GSD - but was settled down the rest of the time. Said hello to Westie friend Sophie and DID touch noses with the GSD a couple of times - we didn't have our usual off-to-the-side spot, another dog had to use it after a scuffle. She was okay with the GSD, I kept it short and sweet. She did look like she wanted to play at one point but I called her off and gave her lots of yummy treats.

Now we go to Monday..

- We took our first trip to Petsmart in a bajillion years. Wasn't a bad visit.. Marge played cleanup on Aisles, um, 1, 2, 3, 4, ... et cetera ... by vacuuming up stray bits of kibble. As I predicted, no one was there in the middle of the afternoon. Oh, except for this very rude little girl and her King Charles Spaniel, who saw us in the aisle, scooped up her dog and ran away screaming to her mommy, "OH MY GOD MOM A PIT BULL!" Regardless of the fact that Marge isn't really a Pit Bull, the comment stung. But, we wow'ed them by (purposely) walking by, with Marge in heel position, giving full attention and not so much as batting an eye at the girl and her Spaniel. Yep, big scary dog, all right. When will people learn?

- We then had a stop at Clove Lakes Park, where Marge got chest-deep in the stream. Wish I had taken my long leash with me, as she was, sadly, only limited to the 6' my leash would allow.


- On the way home, we got an unexpected invite to go play with the Cavalier x Bichon puppies, Gidget and Ralphie. Marge adores them and since they are small, they don't scare her. She had a good time racing around their backyard for about 20 minutes. It was a nice visit, and I'm glad it went off without a hitch.





Now, we turn to today, and all there really is to report is from the Agility Class.

- We essentially had a private lesson. The rain (which ceased a half hour before class started) scared the other students away, so we were the only one in the 7PM class. We got a lot done.

- We did this jump sequence, which I have done a terrible job or recreating. Follow the path from yellow, to orange, to red, to brown, to blue. There were some crosses in there and I learned that I am often too late to execute them. But we got through it alright for a first try.

- The Teeter was the big success. Marisa had the table underneath the banging end of the teeter and had Marge stand on the table and hit the teeter with her front paws so that she moved it and it banged. Marge seemed to get really into it and enjoyed it. We got her over the teeter a couple of times, and at one point while working on the weaves she ran over to it and jumped on, unprompted. Very cool!

And that, my friends, is another gargantuan blog post. I promise to answer your questions about Marge and play PoochesforPeace's blog game before the week ends. We've been soooo busy!