Happy 3rd Birthday...

Sadly I had the camera settings all wrong, so these are not the best of pictures, but I hope you enjoy them all the same.  I also planned to get a picture of Gimme's six new toys, but "someone" has already spread them all over the yard.  The quilt you see is the one I made for her using the fabric in the colors she picked out.  Clearly Gimme has an inspired fashion sense...

We've already had a busy day, starting with meeting Frank and Tor for a five and a half mile walk this morning.  She does well with Tor and pretty much ignored the three other dogs we saw, as well as bikers, joggers, skateboarders, and walkers.

She did say she thought Tor should bow down before the Empress of the Cosmos on her birthday.  Unfortunately he's a big hairy guy, not at all cultured, and doesn't know how to bow, much less when he should.

After that we had a break at home before going to Public Dog class (19).  Class was focused on walking on a loose leash, getting ready for off leash walking.  We start by walking "butler style", with the leash draped over our forearm.

The room had two dogs on one side and four on the other, with us one of the four at the farthest end.  There was about 20 feet between the two sides of the room.  Gimme was very comfortable the whole time and even volunteered a bit of "whazzat" when one dog got a bit out of control and too close for comfort.

We had three turns:

• Walking butler style between the two groups of dogs, the length of the room and back,
• Parallel walking butler style with a team consisting of a black Lab she doesn't know, down the room and back, between the two groups of dogs (which put us closer to the dogs on our side),
• And last, walking the length of the room and dropping the leash altogether after a few feet.  Ursula walked behind us and was ready to step on the leash if a dog started to leave their handler, while Elizabeth was positioned to body block in the most distracting spot (different for each dog). 

Gimme did very well with these.  She did start to distract and Ursula did step on her leash... which in reality acted like a leash pop - so I was glad it was attached to her harness, not the collar.

Lastly they set up two stations.

One was Elizabeth with her dog Angel (who they use as a neutral dog - even though she doesn't like other dogs), who we were to work through walking around in butler style. First we did it with Gimme on the outside and then with her on the inside.  She needed a few reminders, but did quite well walking around her with such a small amount of space.

The other station was to practice precision walking on stairs.  The dogs are supposed to walk with us keeping their front feet no higher (going up) or no lower (going down) than our most forward foot.  Its been a very long time since we've done this, but with one little reminder, Gimme got right into the swing of it.

Clearly a girl with both Beauty & Brains...