Do you talk to your dog

Sophie the irrepressible Bordoodle turned one year old Friday. She actually has calmed down a lot, but now people are saying, "Wait till she's two!" Well, darn, I thought I would have her tamed and reasonable by one. Training Sophie--hmmm, is that the title of a book?--has been a long and sometimes difficult process. For economy, I took her to the PetSmart training classes rather than hiring the personal trainer I used with Scooby. PetSmart training works really well for some people, er, dogs. Not Sophie. I suppose I wasn't consistent about doing it at home, and getting her there got to be a problem--she's so wild once she gets off my property that I am afraid of being pulled down. Sophie will not be getting long outdoor walks, unless Jordan gives them to her.
Eventually I gave up on PetSmart, but she retains a lot of good manners from that training--sit, down, drop it, leave it, etc. But I called Kenny, of Home Dog Training, for larger issues such as jumping--my left arm is always a mess of scratches and marks where she jumps when I'm at my desk. Kenny's big dictum is "Don't talk to your dog while you're training. Only commands." Come on, I want to carry on conversations, tell her she's being adorable, ridiculous, spoiled, whatever. Yesterday, our third and apparently last lesson, he finally got through to me by asking if I saw how she listened to him but not me. "She tunes you out, because she hears you  talk all the time." Made sense, and I'm trying hard, though I have ocasional lapses. I am allowed to say "Good girl," so I do that often. And I play with her and love on her--just no cooing, please.
The first picture is Sophie loving having a new toy; the second is Sophie busily destroying said toy which no longer squeaks.
We're working on stay and come--she did "stay" beautifully with Kenny here; not so much with me. If I hold the leash, she does well; If I let go of the leash, she stays while I walk away, then bolts when I start toward her. I haven't tried "come" on my own yet--she's tired of Pupparoni, and Kenny suggests a tiny tiny pieces of cheese, so I'll buy those awful Kraft slicees. But I figure we have to master "stay" first. What with Jacob, both dogs, yoga, plants to water, and other chores, plus training Sophie, it's no wonder I hardly have time to write.
I hard a small part in a nice dog story this weekend. Two Facebook friends are dog rescuers--they post heartbreaking pictures of dogs that must be rescued or they will be put down. Yesterday there was a miniature schnauzer--surrounded by newspapers, so that I wondered if he'd been destroying them. I shared the photo on Facebook as I do with many rescue dog pictures, and friends of mine saw it and decided they wanted him. He had to be "tagged" by seven this morning, so they emailed, got word late last night they could pick him up today, although they were warned he'd been there so long because he was "unpredictable." They picked him up, named him Jasper, and took him home to a menagerie of dogs and cats where he happily fit right in. I am so grateful to have had a small part in this rescue, and I hope to keep up with Jasper.


Jasper before rescue

More doggy stories

Kenny the dog trainer came today. Sophie learned "sit" in a snap, but hey! She already knew it. The question for her is "Do I want to sit right now?" Then we worked on not going out the open the front door--she was pretty good about it, but we'll have to see how she does in future practice sessions with me. And always the jumping--we worked as much on my correction technique as we did on disciplining her. She had a real workout, and I expected her to be exhausted tonight--great expectatons don't always pan out. She has found a new chew toy--the Kilim rug I just put back down in the office. Took it up when she wasn't potty trained, had it cleaned, and moved it. Put it back for the fundraiser last Sunday. She bunches it up to make a nice, chewable edge. I'll give it a couple of days with trying discipline. I need to teach her not to chew on it, but I don't want to sacrifice a good rug.
Tonight was memoir class and as always I planned to feed Linda. This time I thought I'd get sandwiches from the artisan bakery in the neighborhood--on their website they list several really enticing combinations, but a tiny note warns that they have different sandwiches on different days. I called. They had a muffaletta with green olives (of course) and another, maybe turkey, with tapenade. I really really do not like olives. Asked if they could make a couple with the olives on the side and was told they were already made (at one o'clock in the afternoon). Hmmm--not sure I want sandwiches for supper that were made in the morning. Called Linda. Helpfully, she said, "I love olives!" When asked if she wanted to go to the Neighborhood Grill (made famous in my Kelly O'Connell mysteries, as if it weren't already the favorite neighborhood hangout) or have salad at the house, she said, again being helpful, "It doesn't matter to me." I said we'd go out; when she got here I had thrown everything in the vegetable drawer into a tossed salad, added a can of tuna, and made a quick dressing. Linda added an avocado she'd gotten in a quick stop at Sam's. Really good.
The snack at memoir class was finger sandwiches made with thinly sliced bagels--sliced vertically and not horizontally as  you normally would with a bagel. One class member works at a church where they have a kitchen operating all day every day (my dream for our church). The cook slices donated bagels and fills them with various things. Tonight we had ham salad on jalopeno bagels and chicken salad on whole wheat. I loved the jalopeno/ham and now have the leftovers--thank you, Claudine. The church also uses this profusion of bagels to feed the homeless once a week.
Memoir class was good as always. We went from a straightforward and well done piece about a family member to a fall-off-your-chair funny excerpt from a novel and ended with a thoughtful and provocative piece about family relationships and not rushing to judgment. Then we all got to talking about yoga, hot yoga, dangerous poses, careless teachers, etc. Tonight the laughter sticks with me and echoes in my ears.

End of the holiday

I spent Christmas Day with my family--eight adults and seven grandchildren. Last night I spent New Year's dinner with my Fort Worth family: Jordan, Christian and Jacob. Sue, who calls me her Fort Worth mom, came by for appetizers and a glass of wine. When Jay and Susan, my neighbors, arrived, they brought wine stoppers--the kind I had asked Jordan to look for. When I said that, Jay said, "We're better kids than she is!" And it dawned on me that this was my Fort Worth family--missing Elizabeth and Weldon, but I'm sure they'll be here soon. We had hoppin john that had quite a kick to it--and I didn't add the jalapeno or the bell pepper. Must have been the Cajun seasoning. The Burtons left soon after dinner, but Jay and Susan lingered, playing with Sophie. We agreed she's a great dog--or will be when she's eighteen months. Today, Susan brought a new Kobo brush over and showed me how to use it--Sophie looked lovely, but was soon rolling in the leaves again. Tonight I looked out and she was lying in the yard like a limp rag doll. I called and she didn't move. So, in stocking feet, I rushed out, got almost to her, and she jumped up and began to run like the Energizer Bunny.
The new year is off to a good start. When I retired I thought I would get to write all day every day, but I soon found life gets in the way. This week, it's a haircut, two lunch dates, a date with a dog trainer, and an eye doctor appt. that I dread--I always feel like I'm failing a test when I can't read some lines on the screen. But today was the gift of an extra holiday. My calendar was absolutely empty, and Jacob did not have school--in fact, he's with his folks, and I haven't even heard from them all day. So I did spend much of the day at my computer and got lots done. Almost through formatting the second Kelly O'Connell novel. But I also had a lovely, lazy nap and did my yoga, took Christmas off the dining table, and mopped the kitchen floor. Now I'm back at my desk.
Tomorrow, the world begins again after a lovely holiday. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. I"ll be on the porch at 7:55 to hug Jacob and out the driveway at 8:30.

Strenuous days, a five-year-old boy, and a rough dinner

I haven't been exercising lately because I had this puppy to care for, a full-time job that gave me plenty of exercise. But more and more she's getting self-sufficient. And I'm gaining weight and feeling the need (guilt?) to exercise. So today I did my yoga routine for the first time in two months. Not as bad as I expected--my muscles seemed to remember what they were supposed to do. Granted, I'm a little less flexible--not that I was ever very flexible--and my muscles quiver more in some exercises. But on the whole, I didn't do badly. I went from that to Sophie's first training session, which proved to be less hard on my body than on my nerves. I worried a great deal about being pulled down between the car and PetSmart, but I managed to control her efforts to run to every person she saw and we made it inside. Lesson was very valuable, from how to use treats to vocabulary. Sophie is, I think, part way through what she should have learned in this first lesson--for instance, she knows "sit" and "down" and I learned a super new technique for dealing with her jumping on me.
Jacob arrived shortly after I finished a hasty lunch--he was not in sympathy with my almost desperate need for a late afternoon nap. Woke me up to "love" on me and for several other reasons.  Finally he kissed me and said have a good nap. When I woke up it was almost six and suspiciously quiet from Jacob's playroom--he was sound asleep. I fed the dogs, started dinner, and then wakened him gently by scratching his back. He never wakes up from naps in a good mood but his bad, whiny mood took a while. Then he began to whine because I'd promised a picnic and it looked like rain; I suggested the porch; he cried and wanted his daddy. Finally he decided on the porch, and we carried our dinners out there, only to have him declare it was too windy. Back inside, where he spilled his dinner on the living room rug. Then he wanted to go back outside--carried our food back outside. Then he was sure there was a tornado coming, and we had to go inside. Long story not very short: I had a cold ground beef patty, salad was okay, he had 1-1/2 chicken nuggets, declared he couldn't eat the corn, and finished his meal with chocolate-covered raisins--half good half bad is my grandmotherly rationale.
Rain is in the air, praise be, and Jacob is obssessed with tornadoes, telling me about the ones he's experienced--yeah, sure--and predicting them outside. We have the weather channel on but it's hard for him to distinguish between videos of past tornados and anything happening here and now. He keeps wanting to go to the bathroom to hide but I have refused.
Writing the great American novel? What's that? I may get to read the John Grisham novel that I'm having a hard time with. My colleague Fred tells me it has a section about an inapropriate develpment project, relevant to my work-in-progress, but I haven't come to it yet and am finding, as I have before, that Grisham just doesn't captivate me. This one is The Last Juror.
In sum, a grandmotherly Saturday. Were my kids like this?
Most of the rest of my family is in Austin for a race of some sort--I can't sort out if it's an ironman or a muddy whatever, but I'm a bit sad not to be with them.