Mega Cooties!

Usually when we are at Day School Barbara sets up a big exercise pen for Ambrose and me to hang out in when she works with the other dogs. It is very spacious and there is room for our mats and our toys and to not bump into one another. Sometimes when the other pups are playing bitey face I take some of the toys and take them into a crate. Here I have taken a stuffed raccoon along with both Beatrice's and Greta's Kongs into Greta's crate to guard them.

But today the unthinkable happened. Barbara made me share a crate with Ambrose!!!

I can't tell you how horrified I was. Ambrose is full of cooties and there was no escaping them when I was stuffed into a crate with him. Ugh! I will never get them off. And just look at him hogging all the space. I barely have room to sit there. Do I look happy?

I hope she never does this again.

I Am Sick of It!!!

Sick of what you may ask? Ambrose here and I am completely sick that Niamh just hogs the blog and I get no face time. It is always "Niamh does this and Niamh does that. She is so good. She is so smart." Ugh! What about me??

I am sweet and I am smart and very handsome too. I am sick of being neglected so I am taking over the blog today. This will be a Niamh-free post. It is going to be all about what I did today.

A new dog, named Mutley, has come to live at the training center. Barbara is fostering him for a friend. He is pretty big and looks very serious.

I was a bit worried about him and barked at him when he was on the floor.

What am looking at so intently?

There is a big shelf where Barbara keeps all the treats and toys for the Day School and her classes. I know where she hides all the good stuff and sometimes if she is not paying attention, I can snag something. Unfortunately today she caught me in the act.

We do lots of training and playing in Day School. Barbara didn't get any shots of me doing my exercises (she says it is hard to train and take pictures at the same time) but I do lots tricks like spins, bows and targeting. I like to play rough and Amos is one of my best buddies. Here we are playing tug with Riley's hedgehog which I "borrowed".

I am a happy guy and I am going to insist that I get more blog time so you can enjoy my smiling face.

K9 Kindness

This afternoon Barbara and I met one of our Drill Team friends, Gloria, at the Cole Park Veterinary Hospital's Open House. We staffed a table for K9 Kindness which is an organization of instructors in the Triangle area of NC promoting reward based dog training.

Barbara and Gloria had lots of free literature to give away about puppy socialization and the importance of puppy classes, training methods, dog body language and other important topics and to encourage people to use humane training equipment. I got to model my front clip harness. When I got tired I got to stretch out on my mat.

I am always good at the vet's and I demoed how to sit nicely on the scale while being weighed.

Ambrose and I have always been trained with reward-based methods and we wouldn't want it any other way. I got to show off my tricks and of course got petted by lots of nice folks. I want to give a shout out to my boyfriend Trotter. He was entered in a Rally Novice trial today and got 1st Place with a score of 98 our of 100! I am so proud of him. He has been trained with reward methods too.

Canine Good Citizen

Finally I am a Canine Good Citizen! Yes, I can now put the letters CGC after my name. Now I know you think I should have had those letters long ago and I have to agree with you. Many of my friends have those letter and I was a bit embarrassed that I didn't. But since Barbara is always evaluating CGC tests, she can't test me. So tonight she had a friend who is a CGC evaluator come to Paw In Hand to give a test to her students. She decided that we would take the test. Of course I passed everything!

I thought it was easy peasy. The AKC says you have to do 10 skills to pass and get the letters after your name and a certificate. Here is what I had to do: 1. Sit politely to meet a friendly stranger. 2. Sit for petting. 3. Appearance and grooming. 4. Loose leash walk. 5. Walk through a crowd 6. Sit, down, stay. 7. Come 8. Reaction to another dog. 9 Reaction to distractions. 10.Supervised separation. I am so pleased that I passed and can say I am a Canine Good Citizen.