First Cross Country Meet

      I forgot my camera so this will be a boring post!  But, Churry went to her first Cross Country meet today.  Some things that made this a good training experience were all the spectators, dogs (who knew a cross country meet was such a popular place to take pet dogs!), the starter gun, running people, and clapping and yelling.  Churry isn't scared of any of these things, but they are all things that get her really excited and silly.  She did a great job!  She was in a sit or down at my feet all day and remained there through it all with the exception of when a lady approached us and let her huge dog jump all over Churry. The starter gun didn't phase her.  There were 4 races and I got closer and closer to it with each race.  At the last race, we were as close as we could get to it and she remained in a down at my feet when it went off and everyone started yelling.  There is also a lot of yelling and clapping at the finish line and she was very calm and remained sitting during all of that, too.   I was relieved because it was our first real outing since the embarrassing temper tantrum at Challenge Air last week.   She also stole the hearts of one of the opposing teams.  A huge group of them surrounded us and had so many excellent questions, starting with, "May we pet the dog?"  Well raised kids!  They also had many other very good questions and loved learning about KSDS and Churry.  It was nice to see teenagers genuinely interested in such a good thing!

      I've decided that puppy raising can be much like having a toddler.  You never know when they are going to decide to have a tantrum in public and they are no less embarrassing.  Except, people expect them from toddlers.  When you have a dog in public behaving poorly they give you rude looks and I know they are thinking, "Why did that woman bring her naughty dog with her?"  Luckily, Churry rarely has embarrassing tantrums and when she did last week it was amongst supportive other puppy raisers!    One thing that I noticed last week is that as poorly behaved as she was, the one time she did sit calmly was when a child was petting her.  She loves kids so much!

     And the best part of the day, she jumped in the vehicle on her own going there and back!  We have a new toy that worked wonders!  We have gone out every night this week and played in the vehicle.  I'm sure my neighbors think I have lost my mind again as we have done this before.  She had been doing SO WELL this summer with it and now she has suddenly decided to refuse again.  When we are just playing, and she knows we are just playing, she'll jump in and out as many times as I ask her to.  And with great enthusiasm.  Today, we go out there and it took a lot of coaxing.  She finally did it, but I wouldn't say with the same enthusiasm as when we are playing for sure.    Always something to work on!