Today, I boiled some hot dogs, the Ball Park variety, and cut in half.  I stuffed them into the Tug-It!, squished them, and worked on getting Raven and Leissl to bite it.  There were four minutes of intermittent licking going on, with a handful of bite downs.  None enough to hold onto the Tug-It!   Both of these girls are fantastic tuggers.  They tug together and with me.  Here is Raven tugging with me and Leissl tugging with Raven after their baths today.  The Aussies were quite upset about this as they usually disallow any tugging except when they participate.  Meanwhile, I suppose this lack of Tug-It! success means I’ll have to pop the lid on one of those little cans of sardines and go for it.  Raven is a tugging maniac, except when it comes to it being a reward for working.

Hmmm…tugging as a reward at Fort Doberdale to be continued.

I had high hopes of getting major bath work done this afternoon.  That didn’t happen.  The rains came, so I did what I could.  Leissl got soaped up and Raven had her usual complaint of too much starch on the tail.

Raven and I worked the serpentine later in the day, and she’s doing the two jumps, but there is no recognition of my signaling her to do it.  She’s doing it from habit.  I am going to take an educated guess and say that that is a good thing.  After she gets this down in her muscle memory, I can connect it to the cues I’ll use.  I’m still working on those cues in my own muscle memory.  Leissl is working on targeting from the teeter.  She likes jumping, but contacts are scary for her.  Yet, she does brave them.  Bless her heart!

And as I sign off for this Sunday night, a big fire works bang went off.  Then I hear the DoberDiva barking at the back door.  She is such a sneak!  I called everyone in over an hour ago, and she hangs out in the shadows where I don’t see her.  Then she spends the evening waiting to hunt possum, frogs, or whatever big game might happen into the yard.  I usually notice when I’m tucking everyone in. I gotta watch out for that sneaky maneuver more closely!  She could get in trouble out there!

Helen