We're still here!

Hi everybody!!! We finally got our cable and internet back yesterday. The line to our house was damaged in the storm so it took awhile to get someone to fix it. But we are back to normal here. We were very lucky - much more fortunate than those in Texas who are still way far from getting back to normal. Our hearts go out to them. From the little taste we got of what a hurricane is like, we can't imagine what it must be like for those people! Our electricity went off Sunday the 14th around 4:00PM and didn't come back on until Friday evening around 5:00PM. We really appreciate electricity much more now and don't take it for granted!

Of course there were some positive things about last week. First of all, we had a great time with grandpa and grandma! We spent four nights there and had wonderful company and great meals! I got to run in their big yard each day - I am even getting better at fetch! I am learning from watching my cousin Wilson! My personal record is 7 times of running way out into the yard and bringing the tennis ball back to mom.

On Thursday night I had my 3rd beginning intermediate agility class. This class was our worst so far! The traffic was really bad and it took us twice as long to get there as it should've. So we were late and had to go from sitting in the car for 50 minutes straight into action at the class. We did weave poles first. I kept entering the poles and stopping after one or two to bite at my leg. Mom discovered that I had a burr in my fur (where I picked that up I have no idea). She got it out and then I did the weaves just fine. No wires, thank goodness. We just worked on getting a little speed. Then it was on to contacts. I did a slow but accurate dogwalk but I didn't want to do the aframe at all. Mom encouraged me but I scrabbled up it on my toe nails - it was awful! The instructor picked me up to check to see if I was sore. She showed us how to stretch out my legs. She thought that maybe I was a little sore (earlier in the day dad accidentally rolled his chair back and I was sleepy and didn't move quickly enough and he caught some hair and some of my foot - maybe that was why I was sore). When we moved to the next station, I did a slow teeter but refused to jump the double. After that we did jumps but I didn't want to do those either. So it was pretty much a wasted class. And after we drove in all that traffic to get there! Mom is starting to wonder if maybe classes aren't the right thing for us. We'll see how it goes tomorrow night.

On Saturday I took my CGC test! Our first "competition"! The very first part went well - accepting a stranger and sitting politely for petting. No problems there. Next - appearance and grooming - I looked good, of course, but this lady leaned over me and went right for my ears to examine them and I did not like that at all! I was very fearful and tried to get over next to mom and away from this lady! I also did not want to have anything to do with her touching my feet! Mom asked if we could go on and do the other stations and come back and try again. (Thankfully mom had watched Johann's video of his CGC test and knew that it was possible to try again! Thanks, Johann!) So we went on to other tasks - walking through a crowd, sit and down on command/stay in place, coming when called, reaction to another dog, reaction to distractions, out for a walk. I did all those with no problems. Then we went back to the grooming one, and there was a different lady there. She was very nice and got down on the ground so she wouldn't seem so intimidating to me. Mom got down on the ground too and I managed to be brave enough to let the new lady touch my ears. Then mom handed the lady my front feet one at a time and I let the lady touch them. Whew!! Passed, but just barely!!!! Finally I did my supervised separation - there was no way I was going anywhere without my mom, so I easily laid there until she came back to get me. Any way, I passed the test! Mom was very proud of me!

More later but for now....


Gotta zoom!

Ricky