Moving Whazzat

I had a lot more planned, but the day conspired against me.  Hopefully tomorrow will be more cooperative.

We walked around the Capital Lake, making it a training walk.  Gimme continues to have difficulty with loose leash walking - I think its conceptually just too darn vague for her.  Though we are making some progress.

Because it was early afternoon, we only met a few dogs.  For one of them we were actually able to pass while doing a moving "whazzat" (look-at-that).  That's the first time I have tried that and only did so because we had room to play with it.  Even though the dog (a Boston Terrier) was staring and pulling toward Gimme, she did really well.  So while its been slow progress, we are making headway.

After that we met Tonya at the barn.  I had noticed some warm spots after exercise, so I scheduled an appointment.  Gimme is MUCH improved over her last treatment, as I expected.  Tonya said much of what was wrong now is not about being stuck, rather she has some soreness and tension in muscles in a couple of places.  Tonya suggested massage.

I know TTouch and bodywork would be very good for Gimme, but she has real difficulty with the whole stillness thing.  Every time I've tried she hasn't been able to just be still and accept the work - instead always wanting to turn around and lick me or try to play and other things.  So now I have to get serious about teaching her to just be still and calm...

A funny -- when Tonya was showing me where I need to focus the TTouch/massage, it was hard for me to see, because someone is such a wiggle butt.  Only Dalmatians come to us with a full set of pre-installed locator spots, so we used those...

I also talked with Tonya about exchanging training lessons for treatments.  She doesn't really have a lot of money for classes and I'd like to get Gimme treated more often.  So this could work out well for both of us.