What a day!

For some reason today was difficult. I think Bayou was just not wanting to wear her collar today. I kept it on her until just a bit ago though. She's sleeping now. I think maybe I had it set too high and it was annoying her instead of getting her attention. Even when we did the long lead exercises she just wasn't wanting to participate. I guess it's only natural that she would want some time off. There are just so many teaching opportunities every day that I think it overwhelms her (and me too sometimes). She is learning though because even with the collar off she listens better than she did before we started SMS.

One of the things that was bad today was she was constantly trying to bring poop in the house. I'm still using the For-Bid but if I forget even once, we're in trouble. I purposely didn't clean up the yard today though because I wanted to work with her on not doing that. I'll clean up the yard in the morning so tomorrow isn't as bad as today (poop wise LOL).

We have our lesson this week at the SMS facility on Thursday at 4pm. I'm thinking we can be a bit more focused there, even though there may be more distractions. (Does that even make sense?) What I'm trying to say is that she'll be in a "work" environment and not home where she's used to everything. I know that I need more training on how to more effectively use the collar. There is a learning curve.

Overall though, things have been great since we started with SMS. Bayou has only been in her kennel once for 2 hours (when I was out at an appointment) since last Wednesday. Other than that, even when we eat, she has been out of the kennel. I like that she is tiring herself out now. I don't have to put her in the kennel to "force" a nap. She even takes naps with me on the couch now. I love that. It reminds me of Huxley and Blitz. It's a good memory and feeling. Especially after a day like today I need to remind myself of how much things have changed for the positive in less than a week. It was a rough one today but better than most good days we had before.

I have taken some pictures of Bayou. I just need to download them to the laptop. I'll do that in a just a bit and then post again. No videos yet though. I should try to get one on Thursday when we are training. I can let David train and I'll shoot video for a portion of the lesson. That will be fun.

Okay, off to download some pictures. Back in a bit.