"College, hooman? That dudn't sound fun."

Marge's face in this picture reflects my sentiments about the past twelve hours.

Forgive me for the off-topic rant, but today has shown me that Wednesdays are going to be the worst day of the week for me. I am in class from 10-2:15 and 3:35-6:20, which means I am at the campus the entire day. Due to the deplorable parking situation, I wound up walking about a mile and a half today with two textbooks and a laptop in my bag. Usually I wouldn't mind the good exercise, but walking around a college campus without my walking buddy Marge just isn't appealing to me. Nor is carrying my bag containing all that bulky stuff.

It's actually ironic that we missed Tuesday Training yesterday, because despite the start of the school year, there has been a fair bit going on.

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Laugh it Off, Part 2
Some of you may remember that I posted a whine on here early in August about some family friends who came over and basically (unjustly) tore apart my approach to Marge's training. Well, they were back again this week, but the visit was much more pleasant on my end. I was upstairs when they arrived, so my dad let them in, and Marge did growl at them, but that isn't really surprising. As soon as I came into the room, though, Marge mustered up the courage to go over and sniff them. Due to this, I was told by our company that perhaps I have "the magic touch." A far cry from previous comments, and I'll take it! Marge was relatively relaxed the rest of their visit and only growled on one other occasion, when they made their way into the kitchen where her and I were and everybody wound up in uncomfortably close quarters. But, overall, I think Marge did a great job.

Out and About
Because college has started, I don't have as much freedom to take Marge to the beach or park rather than walk her near my house. So far, with the exception of this morning when a foghorn totally took her by surprise, she has been doing alright. With the cooler weather, she seems more willing to walk on the sidewalk rather than in the field. I haven't really tested how far she'll actually go, and we've only stayed within the range of a few houses, but it's a start. We had a great walk in the field tonight, actually.. I wish I had my camera, because she was being such a goof play-bowing to my sister and I while simultaneously biting and growling at the grass. She can be a funny dog. It was a nice way to end the day after the foghorn spoiled our morning.

Agility Training
Last night, due to the expulsion of last week's bite offender from the agility class, we were the only ones at class and will be next week as well. We didn't go the full hour, but did get a fair bit done in the 40 minutes or so we did have. We started with a box sequence that contained 4 crosses.. I think Marge did an absolutely fabulous job with it. It took us only one or two tries before we were able to run the 9 box jumps and one tunnel successfully.

We also worked contacts using the zone honor, and there now seems to be some debate as to whether Marge needs the 2o2o contacts or can just do a running contact. Marisa said her stride is conducive to a running contact. Honestly, I think we'll probably go with 2o2o because it seems more reliable, but at least using the zone honor is getting Marge to run all the way down to the bottom of the A-Frame for now.

Teeter work continued this week.. this time, we had tables under both ends of the teeter, and I kept running Marge across. She seemed to do pretty well with this game. She really loves going over to the Teeter, even without the tables there, but then jumps off as soon as it bangs. I can't figure it out. If she's afraid of it, why is she so eager to do it? Seems like the underlying association hasn't fully changed, but the operant behavior has been built up. Trying to find ways to counter this.

Class Changes
I found out this morning that my Agility class is no longer being offered because I am the only one left in it. This means I'll have to move up to the 8:00 PM Advanced Beginner Agility class. The dogs in this class are slightly ahead of us, in that they can perform all the obstacles and all have some form of a contact behavior, but I believe Marge is right on par with them in terms of jump, tunnel, chute, tire, weave, etc. performance. To make up for this, I will likely have a couple of private sessions with Marisa after class.

To me, the most important thing is that Marge is not rushed into anything. I've been given the OK for a while now to move up to this class, but wasn't really planning on doing so. Although the class is big, Marge knows most of the dogs in it, so I don't forsee any problems in that respect. I think most runs are done without anyone else on the field (unlike beginner, where we all did small sequences among one another), so that will help Marge, too.
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So, that's where we're at right now. Fortunately, after tomorrow's morning class, I have Friday through Tuesday off from school. I'm hoping to do alot with Marge during that time, including a trip to High Rock Park for a hike, which I've been anxious to go on for a couple of weeks now.

Lastly, here are some pictures of Marge on the beach, taken this past weekend. We've gone there a couple of times recently, since the summer crowds have died down and Marge absolutely loves running on the sand.