I'm On The Right Track

April 14, 2007. Yesterday was Friday the Thirteenth. Nothing bad happened to Tom, Renee or Me, but the Canucks lost their second game of the playoffs. I watched the whole game again with Tom while Renee did other stuff. It was a cold, wet miserable day, but Tom and I went out for a full one hour run in the morning. I haven’t gotten quite that wet in awhile. It isn’t looking too good for my advanced class tomorrow as there are heavy rainfall warnings in effect.

Much to all of our surprises, when we woke up in the morning, the sun was shining, birds were singing and it was quite warm out. We loaded up all of my equipment and then headed out for my second lesson in the Beyond Basics Course. There was no lesson last week because of Easter.

After a stop at Starbuck’s for Renee and Tom, we headed off to class. We arrived early so Renee and Tom took me for a walk through the forest. They had on my tracking harness, and boy was that fun for me. I could use all of my strength and I was pulling Tom all over the place, yahoo.

When Pam, our instructor, arrived, she saw what a strain I was putting on Tom and suggested we go back to the Sensation Harness. That sure slowed me down. Then all the other dogs were arriving, not to mention all of the off-leash dogs coming out of the trails. It was a veritable cornucopia of smells and dogs to enjoy and visit.

Once the group was all gathered together, we headed off into our training area. After some preliminary warm up stuff we got into a couple of new commands and then went back to practicing an area search as well as tracking. It was great fun, but, very stressful at the same time. There was lots of treats for me and some cool fresh water to drink in between exercises.

I had a lot of fun doing the various exercises, and visiting all the different dogs in my class. They are all really nice. There is one really big dog though, named Daisy, who does not like other dogs and has to be somewhat segregated from the rest of us. She’ll get over it once she gets used to nuts like me.

Before long, the class was over. I got an extra special treat today on the way home. Renee rode in back with me. I really liked that. Apparently it was to try and stop me from getting too over excited and barking all the way home. It worked pretty well as I lay down with my head on Renee’s lap.

It worked really well that is, until I saw a motorcycle in front of us and I just had to tell him what I thought of him being there. I actually managed to calm down again and all was fine until we went over those pesky railway tracks again and I completely lost it.

Once we got home, Tom made some more wiener treats for me and Karl is coming over for his next driving lesson today. I ate my food from this morning and then got to go play in the yard until he arrives. Another great day for me. I sure am glad I came to live with Tom.