Training Session 1

My health and a number of other things going on (Shawnee in heat, Molly with a problematic toe injury, and a sick horse) have prevented me from getting to the training goal before today. I just did a short session with the girls--worked Shawnee while Molly was on mat then worked Molly while Shawnee held a stay (She isn't advanced enough to mat on anything like Molly is). I started with a few post-it targets on hand then quickly advanced to my knee. Once they did that a few times, I moved the target to the doorbell. No problem--they targetted it there. Molly did have her usual "are you sure I'm not supposed to retrieve this?" issues but Shawnee was easy going and confident.

Unfortunately they are not yet pushing hard enough or precisely enough to ring the bell, but I am sure we can work that out with time.

I'm very proud of them for remembering the yellow target when it has been so long since we last trained with it and we had done so few training sessions on it.

Heat Times Two

It is horribly hot here now. This is really limiting everyone's activity level. Molly spends much of her time lying in her fence in the shade or on a cool patch of floor. That's the one heat.

The second heat is Molly coming into season. Her heat started yesterday. She's intact for a number of reasons and we have no intention of changing that even though breeding is not in our immediate plans. This is great because it means we won't have to worry about her coming into heat at a less convenient time. Unfortunately it puts a bit of a stopper on training for a little while. I don't know how much I should try to teach her at this time. We also are pretty much stuck home--it is a very active vacation season, so there are tourists all over the place and many are not respecting the leash laws.

We don't want to risk a breeding, so we are very careful managing Molly right now. If she is out in the fence, we check on her regularly. She is on leash for all potty walks so there is no way she can run off. We're not taking her off the property on walks, because it would leave a drip trail that would attract males.

When she is in the living room, she has to wear panties so she doesn't leave those drips on things. I will try to get a picture later.