Mud Puppy

This morning I had to set up for a Show 'n Go I'm hosting tomorrow, so Zane got to tag along and see obedience rings being set up. He met two Shelties. One he kept his distance from. The other was quite interesting. Sedona, the Sheltie, isn't fond of other dogs. She's not aggressive; she just keeps her distance. She doesn't want them in her face. She tends to not like puppies because they want to jump on her and get in her face. But. . . Zane stayed back and didn't approach. So she got interested in him. Not too close, but she showed a lot of interest. They ended up standing right by each other, ignoring each other, and then went their separate ways. It was a very interesting encounter. He also met two new people, a man and a woman.

For his meals we do quick little training sessions. For example, for dinner he did 5 paw touches, 5 nose touches to a wooden spoon, 5 nose touches to my hand, 5 eye contacts, 5 downs, and 5 come and go exercises. Then he got the rest of the meal to eat, and he chowed down and ate it all. I usually give him a little more than he had been eating, and he's starting to clear it. Time to up it a little more.

We only did a little bit of choose to heel/side today. He did great when we worked on it.

It hasn't rained in a few days, so I watered the trees and flowers this evening. Mr. Zane became Mr. Mud Puppy.




Then, of course, a big thunderstorm rolled through and he got to listen to very loud thunder.

He saw the other 3 Aussies getting bathed. I use a recirculating bather, so he got to listen to that noise. Then he listened to the high velocity dryer and it didn't worry him a bit (he can worry about loud noises a bit). And he thought it was very funny to bother the older dogs as they were getting bathed.

Then he got a bath. He did NOT like that. He screamed and fought and made a fuss. But he got done. Then he had his nails dremeled while he licked cheese off of Joe's fingers. No problem!

Tomorrow he'll spend a few hours at the Show 'n Go. I might even take him into the ring and play a bit. Never too early to start working on having fun in the ring!