Winter has finally chosen to arrive here at my home, minus any snow to make it fun. I've had to dig (not too far) in my heart to find the motivation to walk Churry this week! Luckily, my dad gave me some fantastic gloves for Christmas, my mom gave me some great jackets that layer well, and my Secret Santa at work gave me some hand warmers! I've had good use of all of these items this week! It's so much easier to exercise Bailey for many reasons...1. We don't really care how perfect her "heel" is, so I don't feel the need to practice it very often. In fact, we often walk her off-leash. It would be frowned upon by her hunting partner (Pat) if she stayed glued to his side the entire time they are looking for birds. The most important reason I can think of for her to be proficient on the leash is so our kids can easily walk her, which they can. 2. Bailey is the most trustworthy dog in the world when it comes to playing in our yard. She doesn't leave and she doesn't eat stuff/destroy stuff she shouldn't. Which is why when she disappeared for 3 1/2 hours a couple of years ago we were convinced someone had kidnapped her. It turns out she had accidentally gotten shut in our neighbor's garage. And being the good girl she is, she wasn't barking or whining. She was very politely sitting on their step until they opened the door to leave again. 3. Bailey has almost perfect recall. We usually don't even have to call her name...she just knows when she hears the door open to come check in. All of these result in the fact that she's much easier to exercise...we can leave her out to run fairly unsupervised without worry. I could NEVER do that with Churry. Who knows what she would do! And if I'm going to be out in the cold to supervise Churry playing for her exercise, I would rather walk her. At least I generate some warmth and get some exercise! She did get the privilege of just running wild for exercise tonight, though, because it's that depressing time of year when I get home from work after dark. :( So my wonderful husband had already supervised their play hour by the time I got home. I feel sorry for dogs whose owners don't give them proper exercise. Dogs love it so much and behave so much better when they have a proper amount of energy release! And happy, tired dogs make my evenings easier!
On another topic...Churry went to her first movie! I've been really nervous about taking her to one because, while she has excellent obedience skills for her age, she lacks a very long attention span. She feels if she has to wear her cape, then she wants to be up and about doing something, seeing something, learning something...which is not really good for relaxing movie watching. Basically, unless Churry is in her kennel, she's up and about. I'm surprised she sits in her spot at school as well as she does. But, she surprised me again with her behavior in the theater. She got up just a couple of times and didn't really cause a problem, just stood there for awhile watching the movie. I was also VERY pleased with her food refusal! Her basement lessons must be working because she TOTALLY ignored all of the popcorn on the floor. And there was a lot! I was starting to think they purposefully spread it around on the floor just to test her! Now, she's ready for a move with a few more sound effects. I very carefully chose one that I was pretty sure wasn't going to have loud scary sound effects. One obstacle at a time! I would highly recommend the movie "Courageous" for any parent out there, too! It's by the producers of "Fireproof" if you enjoyed that movie. Low budget, but great message!
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