Churry Goes Bowling!

    Churry had an exciting week this week.  She is improving by leaps and bounds on her Gentle Leader since the beginning of the week when she was regularly throwing herself on the ground and rolling around protesting wearing it.  She now is walking very nicely with it on and definitely knows that the tantrums are unacceptable!  She is a fast learner!  I was also excited to see her do a Sit and Stay command for Kinsey.  Kinsey gets irritated because Churry is always following her to the basement and she doesn't want to be responsible for watching her while she's down there.  So when Churry followed her over to the stairs, Kinsey put her in a Sit and Stay command, walked down the stairs, disappeared into the basement, and STILL Churry just sat there waiting to be released.  I finally had to release her myself because apparently Kinsey wasn't returning anytime soon and Churry was starting to look at me pathetically. 
   On Saturday, Churry got to go see horses for the first time at Rocking V Ranch in Auburn.  It was a great place to take her because she could observe horses up close and personal both being ridden and in stalls, lots of people, a loudspeaker, and a store with lots of new smells all in one trip!  She didn't have her best trip because she was a bit nervous about the horses.  She didn't hide behind me or anything, but did whine a few times.  I was relieved she didn't bark, but would have like if she could have relaxed a bit more. 
    Judging how she did on that trip, I hesitated to take her to the bowling alley on Sunday for my kids' activity they had planned.  I decided I would just walk her in there to drop the kids off and then go do some sightseeing with her at some places close by.  As it turns out, Churry was quite relaxed at the bowling alley.  She was PERFECTLY BEHAVED!  I decided I would just stay until she started to act stressed, but she never did so we ended up staying the whole time.  She did "down" when I asked, totally minded her own business when people walked by, left things on the floor alone, and basically just sat and calmly watched everything the entire time.  I don't know why a loud bowling alley would be more relaxing for her than the stable, but maybe those "big dogs" and all of those very different "stable/leather" smells were too much for her.  We'll definitely have to put in some training time at Grandma's house to have some more experiences with those things! 
     I'm excited for tomorrow night with all of the Halloween activities in the neighborhood.  It should be a great training/socialization opportunity for her.  She also gets to go visit Kinsey's classroom later this week for Kinsey's Star of the Week activity.  It will be her first trip to a classroom and will be a test run for seeing how close she is to being ready to visit work with me.
     Have a Happy Halloween!