When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But now I am Six,
I'm as clever as clever,
So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.
Terri was born Jan. 11th, 2005 in a small place west of Gaspé. When I arrived to get her in March, I brought my black Lab into the house to see how they would get along. To my delight, she started following Chimo and they trotted around, inspecting the large basement room. The trip home was not without incident. I was feeling so giddy with delight about Terri, I didn't pay attention to my speedometer and was soon stopped by police. I figured I might as well let the dogs out, even though they hadn't been in the car very long because Terri had already had an "accident" in the crate; the first of many. The cop was probably not impressed that I was more concerned about my puppy's pooping than the speeding ticket.
Since it was winter and I have a long-standing hypothermia-phobia / aka cheimaphobia ("when the fear of cold becomes a phobia, it is known as cheimaphobia or cheimatophobia"), I decided to paper train Terri. This worked out very well and Terri has never "gone" indoors except on newspaper during those early days. Oh -- I forgot. Terri has "gone" indoors twice -- both times in the bathtub. What a smart and cooperative dog.
With a more experienced handler, I'm sure Terri would have a number of titles by now. So far we only have novice rally-o titles from both CKC and CARO. If I get my act together, we will get a title at the next rally-o level. This will depend on me learning the new exercises and practicing often enough so Terri is solid in doing all the novice and advanced level exercises off leash. I need to go back and read Morgan Spector's Clicker Training for Obedience: Shaping Top Performance--Positively and get training again.
Terri's favourite gift for today is 2.5 hours of playtime in the snow in -8°C cloudy weather.
2 comments:
Happy Birthday to Terri! Doesn't time fly - it seems like just the other day that you brought her and Chimo over for the first time. Bella was just a pup then too. Remember when Terri fell off the deck - I almost had a heart attack!
Ha! I do remember that fall, now that you mention it ;-) It was such a long distance for a small pup to fall. Now she jumps up and down to/from my back deck, even though there are steps.
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