This'll Jinx It

But I'm excited!

Charlie's been stressy, lately. For the past few months he's just been off. Not himself.

And I don't know why.

I still don't know the exact reason, but the past couple of days we've done things a bit differently and I've seen something of an improvement. It involves lots of clapping, and a ridiculously high voice, and zero corrections in any shape or form apart from a little "oops, silly boy" and then taking him back and starting again.

But he seems happier, which makes me happier. And when I'm happier he's happier and when he's happier I'm happier and-

Yeah, the picture has been got.

I'm thinking of taking a couple of months break from obedience classes at training, because while our instructor is awesome, she's very... driven. Things have to be perfect. And Charlie and I aren't, and we both tend to get a bit stressy in classes. So I'm wondering whether taking the break and just having lots of silly fun at home and with agility will help us figure each other out more, and then once we've got a rhythm going we can return to obedience and give the class another (for what will be the... fifth? Something ridiculous, anyway) try.

I also gave him a short try on the treadmill and he seemed to find it okay. He's never been over the moon at the prospect of a walk anyway, so his reaction was what I get when I take him on lead somewhere. Since I can't walk him unless I get driven somewhere, I'm thinking about putting him on the treadmill once or twice a day, and me on the bike next to him so it's kind of like we're going somewhere. Hehe.

The plan, in brief, is to: be silly, up the exercise a lot, probably have obedience take a backseat for the next few months, do more free shaping and confidence building, and talk like I'm inhaling helium.

Sounds like a pretty awesome plan if I do say so myself.