Ballet Class

   I took Churry to Kinsey's ballet class last night for the first time.  Her teacher, Miss Linda, is super supportive of KSDS and loves dogs so she was very gracious in allowing me to bring Churry in there for some training opportunities.  The biggest part of this trip in particular was the information I was able to share with people about KSDS and their puppy raising program.  They had lots of questions!

     Besides getting lots of attention from little girls and their moms I really wanted to take Churry there because they have these wooden benches in a long narrow hallway that are perfect for working with Churry on "Down and Under" and for staying calm in cramped spaces, which she has shown some anxiety in before.  She quickly caught on to what I was asking, however, she apparently didn't enjoy the command!  I had her lay there for a few minutes, then would get back up and return to the bench to repeat the command.  After a couple of times, she decided that wasn't for her.  She plopped her bottom on the floor and wasn't moving!  So I would pick her up and scootch her to where I wanted her.  Since she realized she wasn't going to be excused from the practice, she decided to make it fun.  I would give her the command to go under and she would put her head down and go underneath my legs and do a somersault out the other side.  I thought it was an accident the first time, but she repeated this trick twice!  Sigh...I don't think this is what the command is supposed to look like!  On a good note, Miss Linda had her yellow lab there and Churry did wonderfully at completely ignoring him every time he walked by! 

   I also took her to Barnes and Noble on Wednesday evening so she could practice the "Down and Under" command and also practice just sitting in a public setting while I read without trying to get up to go see things or people.  She's really good about not trying to go over to people, but she stands up every time a person gets particularly close....just in case they would like to pet her I guess!   So we need to work on this a bit more. 

   She's doing better and better with her car sickness so it's been a lot easier to get her out and about.  She hasn't been sick since a couple of weeks before we went to Denver!  She also seems excited to go get in the vehicle now because she's learned it's fun to go places.  That's much better than her running and hiding from me when she would figure out I was planning on putting her in the car!