| Time to come home |
| December 13th- 5:30 am I just had to write a quick note because this was really cool. I couldn't sleep, and after tossing andn turning for an hour, I got up at 4. I took Alex out at 5. In the less than 15 minutes we were out, I saw more than a dozen falling stars! I had seen at least 10 during my time here prior to today, which is more than I've seen the rest of my life. There must be a meteor shower this morning. It was nuts! I had to wonder if there was some sort of message.... December 12th Sorry for not getting many updates posted. This last week has kept me pretty busy, and I've been emotionally drained when I get home in the evening. On Tuesday, Chester spent the night. See above. Anyway, my work is finished at Best Friends. :( There were a lot of tearful goodbyes yesterday. Mostly with the dogs. Before I start back home, I am taking two days to calm down, enjoy the great weather we're having (it's sunny and 60 at my house today) and use my snowboard and x-c skis since I dragged them all the way here. It's killing me not to come home, because I miss Will so much, but I need to take these two days. A bit of advice to y'all. Being away from your significant other for two straight months is not easy. At all. I kept saying it's only two months, but after four weeks, I was breaking down. So, though I value my experience out here, I would suggest thinking long and hard before taking this much time away from your SO. Unless you've already been together 40-50 years. Then you'll probably do just fine. :) When I get home I'll post more about my last week and the exploring I did these last few days (this morning I x-c skied at Bryce Canyon- cool!) Thanks for reading! December 5th First of all, I can't believe it's December. We're supposed to be getting snow, but so far I've just seen an occasional flake fly by. OK, now for my breakthrough. As mentioned in my previous posts, working with Brook has been a challenge. She really is a sweet dog, but very shy, and unresponsive to any treat I've tried, so it hasn't been easy to work on basic commands with her. I've had to look for other things she likes. She likes the car, she likes me, she likes to run around with me, she likes to run up and down stairs, and she likes her buddy Ogy. Problem is, none of those can be used to lure her into sitting- they work only as rewards. So how do I get her to sit??? I found if I just sat down and talked to her for a while, eventually she would sit. At this point I'd tell her good girl and we would get up and run around. A bit tedious. But yesterday, Brook showed me that she had been keeping a secret!. If I lifted my hand over her head, much like you would do when trying to get a treat-responsive dog to sit (you'd be holding the treat and luring them into a sit because they would have to look up and back to see the treat), she would sit! She was a little inconsistent, particularly if there were other distratcions (such as cars or new people), but she definitely responded to that movement more often than not. So I ran with it. Yay! We're also getting better at loose leash walking in stressful situations. Chester has been doing well too. We went off leash, and he came back every time I called him. He'll make someone a fantastic running and hiking partner. Here is Brook looking happy in the car: |
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