Today being Tuesday, I was going to get Sally to do the blog, but she says she's too tired. This is a bit worrying, as after last week, she was still too weary on the Thursday night to do agility properly, jumping over the first big fence, but then giving Elanor plaintive looks, asking "Do I have to?" So Elanor asked us not to exercise her so hard today.
We took her to one of the free running fields first thing; there didn't happen to be any other dogs in there at first, and she spent a pleasant ten minutes running about all over the place. When she gets a bit far away, Elanor is in the habit of shouting "Oy" at her, but I find that very hard on the larynx, so I've been training her to come to the whistle on the end of a mini Maglite we happen to have. This was quite successful, starting by calling her in the usual way, adding the whistle as she came charging up and rewarding her with a treat when she arrived and sat.
By the end of the session, she was coming in to the whistle alone. A couple more dogs arrived just as we finished, and she was very well behaved towards them; she's much more socialised these days than she was when Elanor first had her, mainly as a result of all the exposure she gets at the training classes.
This afternoon, we went for a walk round the marina, rather than a longer walk on the towpath. We called in at the field on the way, naturally; it was busier, and she made friends with a collie and another dog of uncertain breed but very pleasant appearance, rather foxy faced and red coloured.
After a bit a couple of collies arrived too, and the five dogs spent quite a lot of time charging about, so Sally was well exercised again. When we got back to the boat, she seemed very content to settle down on her bed, except when human activity needed monitoring, naturally.
Sheila's been having a mega washing day, doing towels and sheets as well as an ordinary load, so she's been up and down to the service block, tumble drying them.
We're both working on writing Kindle books at the moment; Sheila is experimenting with one as an extension to her page on this blog about living aboard, and I'm converting the Building Sanity Again blog to eBook format. I don't suppose we'll make a lot of cash from them, but it's fun giving it a try.
2 comments:
Seeing your rescue dog settling down and becoming a good citizen is so rewarding - Sally sounds like a star!
It is very quiet here as Lou, Lynx and Ty are exhausted after Greygal brought five of her eight hounds for a sleepover at the weekend - happy times!
Sue, nb Indigo Dream
Writing for Kindle - Brilliant idea. I love my Kindle and love the fact that I can store hundreds of books without using up space. Almost all the classics are out of copyright and are FREE to download to your kindle! There is a distinct lack of canal storybooks available - I know cos I've searched. I did buy a book about narrowboats (don't think I should name it) but it turned out to be a book of about 20 poems. Not really my cup of tea. Good luck with your writing!
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