Lesson 7 & Walk

~Since I didn’t take a picture at the C&C Walk, here is a random, but cute one from Halloween!~

This time we met back at our place to have fewer distractions. Georgia was barky (is that word? I don’t know) from the moment C arrived. She likes C and was excited. Once the excitement died down Georgia would bark if C and I were chatting and not paying attention to her (this isn’t normal). Little did Georgia know that even though we weren’t paying direct attention to her, she was the topic of discussion. We worked on “Leave It” with human food instead of dog treats,  this is a much bigger temptation for her, but she did great!  Very impressed that I only had to tell her “leave it” once and she did.

After that we worked on “Stay”, which still needs some work. She only stays for a very short amount of time. Unless I keep saying “stay” and I should only have to say it once. She also doesn’t realize that “stay” means to hold your position. I think I’ve got her thinking it just means stay in the same place, but you can change positions – oops. So, I will be working a lot on that this week and next. We will have another lesson at home and then two more out in public, somewhere other than our PetsMart…maybe another one or another pet store. Just has to be indoors and somewhere that dogs are welcome, so we are kind of limited. Over all it was a good lesson, but nothing ground breaking.

The lesson was Saturday morning and then in the afternoon we participated in a walk for Crohn’s & Colitis downtown with friends (one of my good friends suffers from Crohn’s). Georgia joined us on this walk too. It was a HOT day, so we brought her plenty of water, but she still was hot to say the least; we all were though! She was so well behaved. Only tried to jump on people she knew, didn’t try to jump on any strangers that came up to pet her, so I was glad about that. We had a few people approach us and ask if they could pet her because she looked sweet. That made me feel good and Georgia was very sweet. When the walk was over and Georgia was lying down in the grass resting a teenage boy asked if he could pet her, we said sure. He was so nice and really liked her. He had such a big smile on his face and said that he’d wanted to pet a dog all day. After we left the boy I said to N, “Wasn’t that neat? That’s exactly what Georgia will bring to the people we visit once we become a certified Pet Partners Team.” I think N really got it and understood why I’m excited about this. If she can make one person smile and feel happiness for one minute then she’s done her job.

I wish I had taken some pictures at the walk. I think it was just so hot, that I wasn’t thinking straight. So, next year I’ll be sure to do that. She had fun meeting other dogs and of course people. I hope everyone has a great week…only 5 more days until next weekend!!!