Soggy doggy

A certain someone seems to have devoted much of the week to getting as dirty as possible this week so I am afraid it was time for a bath

She was not amused at all and reverts to a very skinny dog when wet.  Once out of the water a quick rub down and she is ready for a good shake.

She then glares at me for a while.

Before showing me exactly how bored she is with the whole thing!

The final indignity was me insisting on using the hairdrier to dry her off when she started to get shivery.
 

Bronze class

We finally made it into the bronze good citizen class on Tuesday and I was really pleased with how Molly worked in the class.  She fetched a toy for the first time in class and happily played tuggy as well as doing nice heelwork and although we still need more work on stays she is making good progress.

Agility on Thursday was also good and she worked off lead without problem although we have not done enough for her to really know what I am after so is a bit of a loose canon at the moment and she sometimes does her own thing!

Not quite the look I was aiming for

I had half an hour to spare so thought we could do a bit of clearing in the front garden.  For some reason it turned into 20 minutes gardening and 10 minutes to clear all the garden from Molly.  Horrible sticky seeds just really stick to her coat and need combing out and she was covered.

We have been doing a bit of practice on our stays though and now up to a reasonably settled 30 seconds which we practiced this evening on the common at the back of my house.

Securely fenced

I am starting to trust Molly more off lead now so decided over the weekend to give her a walk over "the wedge" which is a lovely countryside area with fields, ponds and streams.  All was going so well until we reached the small woodland area and although I knew it would be super tempting to a bird chaser like Moll I thought it was a good trial as it was "safe" as bordered on one side by a nice secure fence with a school behind.

Things were going very nicely until we reached the corner and Molly was rummaging in the undergrowth, I walked on a little and called her, saw her wandering through the thick bushes - and then suddenly she was not there any more.  Tried not to panic and just called her a few more times with no result at all - could not see her, could not hear her.  Just to add to my tension I had fogotten my mobile phone so could not call anyone for help and also would not be available if she had wandered up to someone who might try calling the number on her collar.

After what felt like forever but was probably a few minutes I decided to try to push my way through the think brambles and nettles (lovely!!) to see if I could see a route she had followed.  The clearest place seemed to be near the school fence so I pushed my way through and there in the school field was Molly!!!  Running somewhat frantically up and down as presumably she tried to find her way back out again.  I called her and she came straight to me - so recall not totally broken - but something of a problem as we were seperated by a very solid six foot metal fence, topped with spikes.

After a bit more panic and a tiny bit of thinking I managed to find a bit of the fence where there was a slight gap underneath and dug a bit more soil out which gave Molly enough of a gap to wriggle through.  Panic over but I think we both gained a fair few grey hairs with that little escapade.

Quiet week

Nothing much to report this week.  General training is going pretty well with the exception of stay and wait - although to be fair to Molly we have not done a huge amount of work on them as I tend to get distracted by doing more interesting things so I think I need to put more focus on training them.
She has now learned both left and right hand finishes and to spin both ways but do need to settle into a bit of the more serious stuff so she can do her Bronze good citizen test.

Tonight she decided she was bored - and a bored Molly looks for trouble so I decided to give her a try with the DogSmart.  She did get the idea of lifting the wooden blocks - although thought the prize was the blocks rather than the treats hidden under the blocks.
We did try some stay training after that - fairly steady stay for 20 seconds so we are making progress.

Festival!!

It was the weekend of the Godiva Festival which is a local celebration with live music and entertainment.  We were invited along by a friend so went on Friday night for a look.  Molly was pretty good at not being phased by the crowds and initially was doing her usual looking for birds to chase but soon realised the benefits of lots of people meant food dropped all over the floor and people she could persuade to say hello to her.  My friend and I got into the rock and roll spirit with a cup of tea and coffee respectively and Molly got to play with the cups when we had finished which kept her happy too.
Saturday we went into town for lunch - lovely cafe which did gluten free toasties - delicious - and then watched the carnival.  I will say Molly was not a huge fan of the carnival and we ended up retreating down a side street for a while as she thought it was a bit too noisy.  In the evening we met another friend for another evening at the festival.  It was far busier than the night before but thankfully Molly took it all in her stride and (mostly) behaved well - other than a bit of screaming at pigeons and leg grabbing that is!

2nd Agility session

Last night was our second session of agility training.  I was really pleased that Molly seemed happy to be there (once she settled down) and we did our first practice session with her on the lead where she jumped really well and amazingly had remembered the tunnels and went straight through with no hesitation.
After that first run I decided I really needed to try her off lead and she was actually pretty good and I have to say the mistakes were mostly down to me not giving her the clear direction she needed. 
Last week she had not wanted to go near the higher stuff like the A frame and dog walk but this week she was happy to go straight up them.  The flat tunnel amazed me even more as she was perfectly happy to push her way through with again no real hesitation.
Looks like I need to get in training to own an agility dog then!