Stuff

Uninspirational title, I know, but I'm feeling a bit drained. Eight hour shift at work tends to do that to me. I'm soft.

/nods

Apart from that, I have bits and pieces of exciting news.

First for Charlie. We're starting to retrain contacts- again, for what must be the sixty millionth time- for running using Silvia Trkman's method. So, hopefully, we'll make some progress on that. I'm debating about whether or not to work on Cik and Cap with him, too. Now the rain's let up, finally, we may be able to get into finishing off my jumps and starting on a dog walk which I'm very happy about. We also have our first '11 trials coming up at the end of January: 22nd is agility novice and excellent jumpers at Durack, 29th is agility novice and excellent jumpers at Birkdale. They'll also be Fletcher's first exposure to a trial environment, which'll be interesting- and gives me a segue! Handy.

Fletcher has been with me four and a half weeks, and what a four and a half weeks they've been. He's incredibly fun, but just insane at the same time. I've found that I'm getting less and less concerned with each dog in terms of manners and nit picky control things- as are my parents. Jack wasn't even allowed inside until he was about a year and a half, and that was only to try and keep him in from wandering off to the neighbours. He wasn't allowed to sleep inside until he was eight. Charlie was inside and sleeping inside from the first day I had him, but as a puppy wasn't allowed on the furniture off someone's lap. Fletcher's not only inside but he can launch onto the couches and sprint up and down them, jump all over the place and sneak in an occasional nom on a cushion without issue. Makes me wonder about what my next dog will turn out like.

I'm ordering a copy of The Focused Puppy, 'cause I need one: the book and the focused puppy. I wish I had of discovered it sooner because it looks awesome and has month by month plans for activities and training set out. But oh well. Shall be handy anyway. I've also got four more books I want to buy, but I have to wait for a few more pay checks to land in the account before I extract another one hundred bucks. I still owe Dad $600 for Fletcher- and next Tuesday both doggies are going to the vet for vaccinations so that'll be a big bill, too. And I need a fair few supplies for handraising my new baby sun conures as of next week, so I have to budget that in as well.

I'm patiently awaiting the arrival two tug toys for Fletcher- though Charlie can probably share the bigger one- from Air Dogs and just hope they come before next Tuesday when he starts puppy preschool. Eek, I'm so excited about that.

As far as training goes, we've done a lot of thinking and clicker work, not a lot of formal training. He's pretty good with "sit" and I'm now starting to put a name ("tic") to the right paw lift and wave I freeshaped. I'm going to focus on "drop" and freeshaping for the rest of this week, then get into some more structured tricks as of next week, while still keeping up the freetime sessions so get him using that silly little noggin of his.

And of course. The Video.