Taj MuttHall Dog Diary: Getting Up-To-Date on The Booster

We've almost got the weave poles done! Have been doing about two 5-minute sessions a day, missing a couple of days because I was busy or it was pouring rain. As of Friday I was able to put her on a tab lead instead of having my hand in her collar, because she was starting to find her way through the poles. As of yesterday, she was largely leading through the poles, still pushing hard rather than letting up to think about it, but still if release the tab lead, she skips poles wildly. If only I had been doing THREE 5-minute sessions a day--or had the energy for a couple of 15-minute sessions a day--we could've been done in a week, I think.

Haven't had an accident in the house in just ages. Maybe it was just a matter of maturity for the last little bit of control. She did start waking up between 2 and 3 in the morning and making a fuss over the last couple of weeks, but I think what happened was that *I* woke up a couple of times and got up to get a hot drink, and let the puppy out at that point, about the same time that Jake had a couple of nights of diarrhea and had to be let out in the middle of the night, and so I decided that she had decided that that's something we're always doing now. So, 2 nights ago when she started making a fuss, I mostly ignored her and then told her to knock it off a couple of times, and she eventually settled down and lasted the whole rest of the night. Last night she was fine. (If she had continued to make a fuss and gotten louder, I was prepared to concede that perhaps she was having some bladder problems. But, no, it was just another case of Mom teaching something she hadn't meant to teach.)

I just looked at our list from class from 2 weeks ago; jeez, I haven't worked on ANYthing except the weave poles (not even an official assignment) and occasional practice on a moving Sit. For some reason she does it better on my left, but on my right goes into a Down on the Sit command. An indication that I've been practicing too much on my left, I suppose.

Food bowls--Boost finishes her meal and then thoroughly and determinedly licks out every nanoparticle of food or moisture from the other dogs' bowls. Doesn't end there, though. She constantly returns to Tika's bowl (not her own, much) to see what's going on with it. And she carries Tika's bowl around; I've occasionally found it out in the middle of the lawn. Not *her* bowl, ever. That, plus the obsession with Tika's poop, would get her labeled as a stalker in the human world. I wonder what dogs consider to be a stalker?

Rolling in poop--I don't want to tempt the gods, but (knock on dog toys), the puppy hasn't had a roll in poop in quite a long time, either. This is good. I hope it continues.