School Daze

Stella started Better Family Dog Manners class at Dogs and Kat, on Saturday. I'm already excited because this assumes that she has family dog manners to begin with. In eight weeks, we'll take the Canine Good Citizen test where she will no doubt add some new twist to that "Sit for a random stranger" routine they do. My friend Barney (the very friend who talked me into holding a fund-raiser for her second knee surgery) is officially her sponsor now. Someday I will tell you all a story about where he got the money to pay for her education but not today. She did pretty well on Saturday and I was happy to see that she isn't the biggest dog in class. There's a Great Dane named Hazel that's a year old and already stands something like five foot nine. There's also a Sheltie, a Shepherd mix, a Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy, two matching Malteses, and Stella. It really seems like the perfect group to tell you the truth. A class picture would be priceless.

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a new training leash. We graduated from a thirty to a fifty footer. It's sweet and a lot more durable than the last one. I like the added exercise not to mention the extreme happiness Stella gets from being able to run semi-free. I have to admit that the weather has made me slightly grumpy of late, but not her. She seems to have no concept whatsoever of frostbite or runny noses but I'm counting the days.

We also got our prizes in the mail last week from Koko's Pet Spa. Stella won third place (thanks to all of you dedicated voters) We haven't used the Vitamin Shower yet but it looks pretty cool and I'm sure it'll keep her skin soft and dandruff free. She doesn't have a big problem with that but the water here is laced with chemicals so it can't possibly hurt to filter them out. We gave the prize money ($50) to the Cheatham County Animal Awareness Foundation. She also won some treats, a boomerang-shaped fetch toy which she is totally excited about and a bath towel that is both useful and hysterical. Pictures to follow.