I said goodbye to my beloved miniature poodle Juliet on November 13th. She was 15 years old. Juliet was an amazing dog. She loved to train and to work with me. For years she was my partner in everyday life, going everywhere with me, as well as in the obedience and rally ring. I will always treasure the memories I have of her, especially the way she could make me laugh.
I especially love this photo from our Rally Team win. We are second from the right, looking at each other, of course.
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| Poodles in Black and Brown Rally Team at the GCOC trial. |
Rex will be 9 months old in a few days. He is growing into a very handsome boy. He is beginning to mature and settle down a little more, though he's still got plenty of silly puppy in him!
We have been getting out and about in the world to train. We began with the usual pet friendly places like Tractor Supply, Petsmart, Animal Supply House and local parks where he could see and take in different people, sights, sounds and smells as well as work on his leash manners and basic obedience.
Next we added Lowes and Home Depot. These hardware stores used to be pet friendly, but they changed their policy to no pets (although some individual stores may still allow), so Rex began wearing his vest with the Service Dog in Training patches. We usually work on focus, sit, down, wait, and heel.
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| Working with Rex to be comfortable walking on a grate |
As Rex progressed and did well we began to visit other places to train such as our church office, our small downtown shopping district (outside only), Gander Mountain, the Post Office, and the outdoor patio at Starbucks.
We train at the Charlotte Dog Training Club building one night a week after I finish with the Rally Novice class I'm assisting with this session. This is a great place to let Rex get more exposure to other dogs in a safe setting as well as learn to keep his focus around other dogs. He has learned to love his soft crate and wait quietly in it until I'm done with class. After I work with him inside we go out to watch the teams training on the agility field. He's doing terrific watching calmly and being able to re-focus on me. We also spent some time at the recent CDTC Rally Show-N-Go which was little bit different atmosphere than class nights.
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| Me and Rex at the Starbucks for the first time |
Other places we have been/trained include in front of the entrance of Office Max at a busy shopping center, the pharmacy, and my doctor's office (a brief stop in to pick up a prescription).
We have been meeting up once a week with another local SDiT team to train and sometimes take a walk in different places around the area. This has been wonderful for both training and motivation.
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| One of our early training outings with SDiT team Veronica and Hestia |
That's about it for now. I'll try to do better at updating regularly in the future.
