Hello 2012!

Happy New Year!! While 2012 is only almost a day old, I'm pretty happy with how it's started! We had a nice laid back evening at our house with an old friend and his fiance, who I got to meet for the first time. Then today I headed out with Bess and Ruthie for an obedience lesson. The lesson went really well and I was happy with how both girls are progressing! Bess is getting ever closer to an actual honest to goodness dumbbell retrieve! It's taken a long time and we still have a LOT of work ahead of us, but she's starting to get it. And once she's really got it, I know that she'll fully enjoy it. At the moment her enjoyment is hesitant. She's not entirely sure of what I'm asking her to do and why I keep building on what she's already mastered. We also had some off leash heeling that was wretched today! Yay!!

Ruthie was also doing a great job as well! We have a stay! There are still aspects of the stay that we need to build on, but thank goodness it's there. And she actually has a stand stay as well! This may not seem terribly impressive when you consider the fact that she's a finished champion and conformation dogs do a whole lot of stand stays. However, I pretty much broke her stand stay once we brought her home. Sit was the first thing that she learned and she got heavily rewarded for it. As such, it's her fall back behavior. We've had to put some time in getting the stand stay back.

We also had a little frenchie team practice! Good lord these dogs are adorable! Each practice we improve more! We did some group stays today and while Ruthie's group stays are still rough, she is greatly improved from where she was at previously. Yay!!

And Ruthie also has an competition obedience collar!lol The above picture is the collar that she will be competing with.:0) I have to remove the dangling thingy, but otherwise it fits within the rules. I asked our instructor today just to verify. I bought the collar originally because it was just too freaking cute to pass up. And at $10, there was no way it wasn't coming home with me. Then I got to thinking that it would be awesome if it could be Ruthie's competition collar! She doesn't pull on the leash at all, so I don't need to worry about the collar busting. And that collar combined with my shiny gold "obedience" shoes will definitely make us a team that stands out! Though I'm not entirely sure that's a good thing right now!lol I'm starting to think that I need some pink sparkly shoes to go with her collar. Maybe some pink sequined pants as well? Maybe a blinged out top? he he he.....At any rate, this upcoming Sunday we'll get to try out our ensemble as well as our skills at the frenchie obedience match. If nothing else, I promise to try and get at least some pictures. We'll see about video.;0)

Heffner pretty much got to bum around the house today. After I got home from the lesson and practice, I took a lovely nap on the dog beds with him that I think he enjoyed. We were up pretty late last night and I was totally zonked.

I hope everyone is having a great start to the new year!