Tonight I started working on Raven’s sit stays more seriously. She and I are signed up for that beginning agility class in September, and I suppose it’s time to settle some manners into the Raven. So we worked sit stays where she did very well, staring at me for 10-second intervals between clicks and treats. We ended on a 15-minute sit stay and she got a jack pot. Then we did a handful of treats worth of touch the dumbbell on the floor. What a doosie of a pup!

Meanwhile, there is something about that look of hers that I often wonder about. Of course, this picture was taken when she had a right to give me such a look. OK, so I had to remove some of the temp fencing around my vegetable garden yesterday and replace it. I use a brick to pound in the new stakes, and I used to have a beat-up towel that I put between brick and stake when pounding. I looked around for something to use that was well-worn and I thought this old Wubba cover was it! Uh huh. I pounded a few times, and something called me away. As soon as I moved off, Raven snatched back her Wubba cover, and this was the resulting look. I guess I deserved it. I decided to pound without a cover, and it worked fine.

This morning, thank God, the tree men came back and removed all those tree pieces and chunks of trees from behind the hedge of the yard and put them into the swale for bulk trash pick-up Wednesday. I was so happy that was done! Whilst the two younger men worked, the leader pointed out all the work that he could do in my yard. Yep. I know. But I’m a do-it-yourselfer where I can be due to thriftiness, and taking down 40-foot pines or 25-foot traveler’s palms was not examples of those times. Hence why he got that work.

The FDSP had oatmeal and peanut butter for Sunday breakfast. It was intended to be a treat; however, Baby (the Queen Mother) didn’t like hers. She walked around checking in everyone’s bowl to see if they had the same thing as she did. She was disappointed to find it was so. Ginger loved her breakfast, as did the rest of the FDSP. She has a hobby of picking up stray toys and non-chalantly strolling back to her den with them. That’s why no one has any Nylabones to munch on!

Luigi had a good time eating his breakfast, too. I get the feeling he may have irritated the DoberDiva, though. She is good at spitting especially when she has a mouth full of food that she’s not particularly fond of.

This evening, Luigi and I worked in the kitchen on scent discrimination. I brought out a second metal dumbbell and he and I clicked and treated our way through his selecting the right one each time. However, he has no clue yet, why I click on the one with my scent on it. But he will. He’s Luigi. Bright as they come. He also is in the beginning stages of learning to walk backwards. The light bulb dimly came on for him and me on learning/training walking backwards. For most of our tries, he would step back and as I was clicking, he would be sitting. That is one of the habits we need to correct. I’d like him to tuck sit instead. However, at the end of the session, he stayed standing instead of going into a sit when I clicked his steps backwards.

Now both Raven and Luigi are resting and quietly thinking about what went on with our training tonight, so all that knowledge will be stored in their Dober memory banks.

Baby and Bunny Butt absorbed lessons from the Peace Stone this weekend, and Ollie found an old favorite ball to prance around with.  Ollie is one to find a toy that everyone else wants and hog it till either he gets bored, or somehow another dog snatches it away from him.  He’s no fun for playing fetch because of that, but he’s good for keeping other family members occupied when the real Queen Mother wants a break from having a Cuz ball or other toy shoved at her.

By the way, Raven has a new elegantly Dobermann look about her. She does. (It startled me at first.) OK, it’s occasional, but that look has arrived since the Peace Stone fell from the sky and her maturity started kicking in. She’s by no means mature, but she is getting there. She still barks hysterically in her crate when she wants immediate results, but heeds my warnings and closes the yap for 10-15 seconds intervals. Hmmm, that’s the same amount of time she can concentrate on a sit-stay. Maybe we have something there!

It was a fine weekend. I even got further along with building the high jump until the rains kicked in and the instructions got a tad confusing on Saturday. I needed a couple more PVC poles as well, being there was a piece to the construction puzzle I failed to recognize. PVC poles were purchased today, and next weekend, I should be able to complete that high jump. The bar jump will be the last of the set. Alleluia!

Helen