Back and Forth

Last weekend was wonderful, we finally got some sun and it meant staying out as much as possible. On Friday morning me and Bella took two short tracks and since the weather was so good we went on a walk where she could be off leash.

 

I did the track to decide whether to sign up for the tracking test on 7th July. I thought it might be alright to go with the sole purpose of seeing how it would go. Another part of me wanted to be ready/was scared. I ended up deciding not to and wasn't too bothered.

 

Today I went and laid a rather complicated track, I meant to do a longer fairly simple one but I found such a nice spot with tall trees that I had to do all sorts of turns. It went well and Bella is already getting very good at marking with the method I eventually chose.

 

Then came the kicker. After I come home I check my facebook and the first thing I see is a notice that the sign-up date for the tracking test was pushed back until July 1st. Cue the start of yet another rollercoaster of what I want to do!

If I enter it won't be because I know we will pass for certain but rather as a test and seeing where we stand. I have until July 1st to make up my mind.

A Different Sort of Adventure

I recently tried my new bike carrier recently and took Bella and my rarely used Mountain Bike to a very exotic (ha! ha!) place right next to highway number 1. Like under 25 yards away from it. In my defense a small river separated us from the highway and it was late in the evening and I live in Iceland after all.

Considering the photos were taken around midnight I'm not sure I should say the lighting conditions were crappy, but it explains the blue hue.

Anyway, I biked 2 miles on a dirt rode with Bella unleashed and I haven't seen her this genuinely ecstatic for a long time. She ran like around the little devil she is, running some distance in front of me and stopped to sniff and enjoy the scenery before running off again. She ran alongside me and looked at me with pure joy in her face.

I'm glad she had so much fun because I love mountain biking and have been wanting to do this kind of biking with her for over two years but due to physical constraints and not having a bike carrier I haven't been able to. I'm not ready for more than dirt packed roads but we'll get there. I'm healing fantastically!

On a worse note, after getting home tonight from biking in the neighborhood I saw an announcement that a foreign guest judge will be judging Tracking tests for the German Shepherd division in early July and that other breeds are welcome to enter. My competitive side really really wants to enter but I'm not sure we'll be fully ready by then. Too many challenges, so little time! We'll see what we can do, at least I can observe the test if I fail to be ready.

Last Few Days

Last weekend me and the whole family went to a cabin we've been to many times before. We were hoping to get some sun and mild weather but spring in Iceland has been aborted so we got rain, lots of wind and cold weather.

In general it was a good excuse to be lazy. I did lay one track for her and it was excellent, except I jumped the gun a bit and forgot to give her plenty enough time to pee before putting the harness on. Once the harness was on she was just running around trying to find the start of the scent and when she found it she got her moment of zen and decided to pee on it. Pure handler mistake there!

I really need to start working on teaching her to mark objects when tracking. I am just torn between whether to teach her to  pick it up -which I just recently knew was allowed- or sit/lay down. I had started teaching her to sit down when doing the peppermint detection training but haven't gone very far with it as I had to throw my idea of using balls into the ocean. She's not toy driven. at. all. It had turned into her seeing the ball go down, then instead of trying to get the ball and sniff where the scent was she just stood back and stared at me, except she sometimes sat down because she knew that had something to do with it. Stalemate!



On Monday I crashed something awful, I barely got out of bed without getting ridiculously dizzy and whatnot. It took me two more days to snap out of it and yesterday I was next to normal, just in time to watch an Obedience competition. It offered Bronze grading and Obedience I. I am aiming to do a tracking test next fall and have been considering if I should give the Bronze obedience test a try. I spoke to a trainer there (and a Border Terrier owner!) and she was encouraging me to give it a go.
What cripples me the most is the fear of Bella running away from me during testing. Memories of me chasing her around the agility arena still haunt me. Since I'm on maternity leave this summer that it's an excellent opportunity for me to train her in areas with distractions and see where it gets us. I know she can do this, we just need to work hard.

First Day of Summer

Somebody decided to make an annual holiday in April in Iceland to celebrate that summer has arrived. When me and Bella went out tracking today it snowed.

The track I laid was the longest one yet and went both up and down a fairly steep slope. The tracking from Bella was really good. She started out with her high speed but did slow down about halfway through and worked at a steady pace all the way to the end. I was super proud, especially since she's in heat and has been feeling a little under the weather.

'I'm what??'

In between Bella sleeping and sleeping more, we are also practicing with a method of marking. It involved buying tennis balls and making a 'scent box' from an unused flower pot and cardboard.

I bought these Kong AirDog balls which were bouncy and squeaky. I have always had better luck using treats to motivate Bella but wanted to try a toy this time. She has already 'killed' one of the balls and she wasn't even trying! It still bounces so we can use it but I had hoped that they would survived more than a dog's bite.

Anyhow!

The trick is to put the highly desired ball into a place where it's impossible to reach without help. Inside the box is the smell I want Bella to associate with the ball in time. So what I'm trying to teach her in the long run is that when she finds the smell she will sit down because sitting down when she finds the smell means fun/ball.

'I need monkey fingers.'

I like the theory and believe it can work but I am still on the fence whether I can use a ball to get where I want. I'd rather try not to involve treats if I can help it. I wanted to see Bella be more eager to stick her nose into the box to get the ball but after the second time of trying she knew she couldn't get the ball and just stood there waiting for something to happen. I'm trying to wait for her to get close to the box and stick her nose in before I tell her to sit and wait and then play.

That Time of Year

The obsessive sniffing. The non-stop scent marking. The Nobody-Is-At-Home feeling I get when trying to get her full attention outside on the leash. Yep, it's all indicators that Bella is going into heat and today she started full force. I highly recommend neutering female dogs, I would do it in a heartbeat if I wasn't being cheap and saving myself $500 to do something else (like buy camera equipment).

We did, however, go out and lay a track. I made it a little shorter than yesterday (75m) and really wanted her not to get lost so when I crossed a low bush similar to the one two days ago I was more generous with treats and went as straight through it as possible. Other than that I am slowly starting to reduce the amount. What surprises me is how fast she works the tracks and at first I thought she was definitely just sniffing out the treats and not my scent but now that I see how many treats she tends to leave behind and still not lose track I am starting to have more faith.

I am an air traffic controller and in my work I first and foremost trust myself to do my job inside the area I work at each given time. I don't think about whether my colleagues are doing theirs once the airplanes cross the boundaries of control sectors, I must trust them like they must trust me.
With Bella, I am finding it a challenge to stop worrying about whether she is doing her job and just let go. Maybe I am really a control freak at heart and that it's a good lesson for me. We are both learning and I am no doubt learning a lot more than Bella is. It's interesting to see her go slightly of track (in my eyes) and then jump right onto it as if she was never off it... which is no doubt what was actually going on.

Today I saw a video with a very brief explanation of how marking was taught for a drug/explosive detection dog using a wooden box. I may give that a try here at home using a very advanced tool -children's shoe box. The clip added the missing link.

Must Keep At It

It's the weekend and the snow returned. I used it as an excuse to not go out yesterday but today the weather looked too beautiful to miss. I had also recovered from the rather bad decision to go ahead with the track I laid on Thursday rather than create a new one.

Yep, I laid a track on Thursday for Bella and went to a spot that is rather close to a popular spot for people to let their dogs loose. I have visited that spot myself a lot but I chose another a little further away and didn't realize until I had started laying the track there that the area was quite dense with dog poop. If I had been thinking clearly I would have stopped while laying the track and found a better place since I wasn't planning on a long track but I went ahead and although Bella did complete the track she was really absent minded and I had to stop her from peeing on the track two times. I felt very stupid.

So today I went to a spot near a horse track. However, it's in an area that no one stops, like ever. It's too close to the highway to be exciting so I got a fresh ground to work with. I took a picture before I started, I went down there and up in the clear space between the trees, it was about 100 metres (~109 yards).

And coming back from the track I took another picture of my car. Bella is there tied to the back of it but she's barely visible. That white thing behind the rear wheel is actually her! What purpose the building serves I have no idea but it's built in the middle of nowhere by the company that provides me my energy.

This time the track started out really well, I did give her 3-4 metres of the tracking line and she was racing. It was interesting when I noticed that while I thought I was on the track and she alongside it that she was actually on the track and I was offset my about a meter. Good stuff!

Of course she then had to get lost. D'oh! It was in a patch where I had to go through a low bush and go a bit to the right and suddenly she went way to the left and then started backtracking and eventually just spinning into circles. I had to help her get back on track and she finished like a pro, so well that she was going to run away from the end spot to follow my getaway-trail and miss the jackpot at the end. So I had to stop her, woops!

I tried a new way to track the track that lets me upload to google maps. The track is awfully straight once uploaded!

 

Sjá Vegbrekkur Spor 9 á stærra korti

Don't Plan Too Much

My daughter got her name on Saturday and as I suspected I wasn't able to take Bella tracking that day. We had a birthday to go to on Sunday and I was tempted to be lazy after it but I went and laid a track anyway.

Yesterday should have marked the end of the first stage of imprinting but since I missed out on laying a track on Saturday I wasn't quite sure how to proceed. Continue with day six or take a break as I had planned? Yeah, I made myself a real dilemma there.

After sleeping on it, I decided to lay a track today since we had Saturday off. I also decided to proceed to stage two of imprinting. It wasn't a big step at all since stage two is about adding variation now that the dog is learning the game. The author recommends sticking to the same field for at least two next tracks but only change the direction to begin with.

So instead of going straight away from the road I went alongside it today. I have been laying the tracks mostly on moss but right next to the road was lots and lots of grass. Bella was racing down the track and would jerk to a stop now and then when she had to pick up treats.

Afterwards I stopped in a new place to allow her to run loose and the weather was wonderful. It's great to be back out there with my dog.

Spring is in the Air

Some days are just perfect in their simplicity. My fiancé kicked me out of the house today and told me to go let Bella loose. So I did.

This winter has been ridiculously mild and now that spring is in the air being outside is so refreshing. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera with us, Bella was running around like a racehorse. I even found some logs from trees that had been culled and made a small jump for her.

I honestly don't really feel like my physical health is improving much but I don't feel a lot of pain while I am outside. It's like a hangover that haunts me in the days after but at least I can enjoy moving while it hasn't caught up with me.

I may have a push factor in trying to keep going out despite the pain that follows, I asked around yesterday and there's a possibility that a tracking course will be held later this spring. I think it would be fun to be able to get out there and learn from experienced handlers. I just need to be able to deal with the walking a course like that mandates.

Lazy Bones and Dog Fences

Last 2-3 weeks have been uneventful at the household. Bella has been in heat and the first several days she looked pretty much like she was dead.

I don't like this time of year.

My mobility has been getting worse as well so this has been an awkward time for both of us. We've been a pair of couch-potatoes.

However she's been coming into her own the past few days and it's actually helping my own spirits as well. Yesterday I took a trip to one of the new dog fences that was built about two weeks ago. It's very close to my place of work so I figured that since I only work a few hours a day I could take Bella with me and allow her to run free on our way back home. At least until she's definitely past her fertile phase and I can let her loose in our usual spots.

Now, I work in a very urban area and the city decided a dog fence was perfectly placed on a rather small patch of grass surrounded by big traffic lanes. This is what me and Bella found:

A dog park - Reykjavík style!

It's not a very good photo but apart from the terrible half-muddy ground there is a pretty big gap under the fence. This was one of the smaller gaps. Bella could have left the fence pretty much everywhere along the entire length of the fence. Much larger dogs than my Border Terrier don't need an iron will to escape.
And right outside this gap in the picture is a street with rather heavy traffic on most days. There's traffic just a short distance from anywhere outside this fence.

So my terrior-in-heat didn't get to stretch her legs much inside this fence. I was really excited to see these small dog parks get built in the hopes of a dog friendlier city. This effort just fails on so many levels.

So in the meantime until I can turn Bella loose outside a fence we are working on our contraband-peppermint scent skills at home. Bella is doing well but now the handler needs more knowledge.

Twilight Tracking

Me and my son went to lay some tracks for Bella tonight before it got dark. I took some videos and totally forgot to turn the camera correctly but I did remember to turn the flash on. I have been buying a lot of reflective gear for the winter so Bella is almost invisible due to reflective light in the video.

I laid out three short tracks but the second two had some turns in them. The video below is from track number two. I'm pleased with how she worked that one.

Track three was a bit of a mess, I forgot where exactly I had left it and was distracted from trying to record Bella tracking it, Bella got distracted as well and started marking (the peemail kind!). I stopped my attempts of recording and started fresh from the start with my full attention. I don't think Bella went the right way but she ended in the right spot so it wasn't a failure. But it taught me that perhaps it's better to focus on the job at hand.

Yesterday I downloaded a book on tracking, Making Scents of Tracking by Deborah R. Davis. I don't actually know much about this kind of work but would like to know a lot more. Finding books proved a little tough as I don't really know what exactly I was looking for and some I found that looked somewhat promising didn't get very good reviews. I'll see if this one sheds some light on the sport.

We Still Live

After a while of being missing in action I return with a video. Of Bella! yay!

To make a long story short, my back is messed up big time again and I have been struggling with work and home life.Physiotherapy, acupuncture and painkillers are some of the things awaiting me. Unfortunately, my doctors are advising me not to walk, jog or bike much if I can avoid it and instead going for a swim. Unfortunate for a person with a dog? EXTREMELY!

However, after feeling very guilty and like the world's worst dog owner I decided to stop grieving and get creative with things to do with Bella. I do try to take her to a field to go frisbee-ing or ball throwing but I am also getting back into more regularly activating her in my home. Mainly with trick training.

When I was pregnant with my son I taught her to pick things up for me, something I have used from time to time. I never got around to actually getting her to drop them into a box like I was planning. Yesterday I finally got around to finding a suitable box and we got going. I took a short video and it's actually only our second training session working on this, ever. I think it's going pretty well already.

With a kid that loves spreading his toys (and the contents of my kitchen) all over the apartment, maybe Bella could still try to impress my fiancé with her tricks.

Looking Ahead

I was a little upset last night after agility and feeling disheartened. Today I put my thinking hat back on and after reading something I realised I'm not the only one who has experienced this kind of behaviour. I believe I need to take a few steps back and focus on breaking the toxic mindset that the agility is creating. I believe this is more of an overstimulated dog problem rather than an obedience problem.

I am going to work on our problem from that angle for now and see if I can gather some more information on strategies to break the habit.


Today was fun though, I went into Ikea after work and bought some storage shelves -to create jumps! I am not fully finished yet but so far I really like them. I bought enough for 2 jumps but I may get more pieces and go up to 4 jumps.

With the snow gone me and Bella should be able to have a little fun out in our yard! I now have jumps and a weave. I also have a cheapo Ikea tunnel but it's rather lightweight and sometimes spooks my small hearted Bella.

Sunday Blues -Agility

Sundays are agility days. In the hopes of helping Bella focus I took her and baby out for a bike ride today. We did get some nice sprinting done and Bella had a lot of fun.

Then comes agility in the evening and it took her 50 minutes of the entire 60 to start getting semi-calm. She was absolutely insane to begin with and I had at most 1% of her attention. I am almost at my wits end with her and at the same time trying staying calm and working through this systematically.

I think one problem of ours is the fact that I am so worried about losing her from me that I tend to get into a hunched position which ruins the communication. When I straighten up and take the lead it does give better results but before I know it Bella has run off, so I get hunched again. With all this craziness going on I have cut back to doing one item or a sequence of two, three at most. I try to stop and praise her like there's no tomorrow. Sometimes it works but sometimes she's run off before I get the chance to or if I stop and plan to reward, she takes that as a sign it's the perfect opportunity for her to run off.

This week I am going to try to find time to take her somewhere I can turn her loose and work on sit/lie-stay when she's off-leash and with plenty of distractions but not the intense '10 other dogs' distraction. I have to crack this! My sweet and eager dog has to be able to function in agility class so that we can both enjoy it.

Even Pirate Dogs Have Weaknesses

Winter continues here in Iceland and the snow has returned. I am continuously sick and it is getting more than a little annoying. During the snow free days this week with perfect weather and me doing alright I had planned on going out for the first bike ride with Bella this year. To my disappointment, the tyre tube exploded and I had no extras. Argh!


Bella is getting the hang of the hind leg pivoting to the point that she has offered the behaviour a few times on her own with no prompting and no object on the floor. She is offering it pretty consistently with a book although she uses it less and less. It is rewarding seeing the work pay off.


At home, Bella is usually calm and quiet. There is however one or two actions here that really get her riled up, I was playing around with the camera around one of the transitions tonight. Below is a picture of Bella right outside the kitchen, watching what is going on there in the hope of getting something edible thrown at her.

Less than a minute later, the signs of distress are clear and she has moved to the living rooms, what's going on Bella...?

"I don't feel so good right now, what do you want with me?"

....

Ding! Ding! Ding! My fiancé cooking with the frying pan. Without a fail, it makes Bella go into hiding. I think it must be the noise or smell that makes her so upset. There was a time where I would try to coax her into being nearby but she still felt really bad so now I just leave her be. She comes back as soon as we stop using it and start eating. She does the same as soon as we start cutting onion. That one I understand well enough.

Finally, one picture of me, my horse and stepdaughter who participated in a costume competition. We found this ridiculously big sword that we just had to buy and she rode like a true skeleton knight.

My Big Problem

In only about 24 hours from Sunday evening to Monday evening I had my main problem in animal handling staring me in the face.

I'm soft.

This is something I didn't use to be. I'm not sure how it happened but this has been haunting me for the past few years. I am too soft to claim what I want, too soft to growl when I need to and keep at it with even more enthusiasm. I'm stubborn alright but too often tend to go the sneaky way to reach my goal which can be good but truthfully -it doesn't always work.

This firm element got beaten into me during my training for work. Two years of braintraining got me somewhere. If someone is not obeying instruction on the frequency I'm lighting quick draw out the no-nonsense part of myself. I'm really firm during those encounters.

I've been thinking about how I didn't use to be soft. I was more gutsy as a rider and was firm but fair. Now the firm part seems to be a joke. I can't keep my dog's attention well enough and my horse has gotten so bold he doesn't care about anything as long as he has things his way. Both are a treat to train and work with when the going is good. It just seems to be more on their terms than mine that they decide when to listen...

It's not that I don't believe in my abilities as a trainer. I am fair and I can be firm but it seems now that under pressure, I get soft.

Additionally, it hurts when people comment on something I am trying my hardest to prevent, as if it's all my fault and there's nothing I'm doing about it. I received two such comments this weekend on Bella and my horse and I do feel both were unfair in some sense, one less than the other. Maybe it's a sign of my weekness that I've been moping and feeling bad about it rather than "plugging into my controller mode" and dealing with it.

This week, I've sometimes just wanted to fall down to the earth and throw a big tantrum followed by an even bigger cryfest. However, there's a lot of positive signs as well, my animals are responding to my training and tonight my riding instructor even complimented my horse's knowledge after he gave up fighting her. Bella's pivot training is only lagging due to my own lack of time. This of course means that I AM doing something right. Now I just need to bring the Air Traffic Controller in me to my training sessions.

Magic Shrimp

I took the family to the stables this morning to feed the horses. It's only three horses currently in the stable so it's not a very time consuming job. There's a certain zen about being around feeding horses, the noise of horses munching on hay is the most soothing sound I know of.

After a lazy day watching the wind and snow outside the windows, me and Bella hit a real breakthrough in our hind leg pivot training. We had tiger shrimp for dinner and with bits and pieces left Bella was hard at work earning her bonus meal. I have been struggling to get her to just move her hind end and there was a pattern emerging the past few days. Tonight she moved without me moving and I ended the session after an almost 180 degree turn which was a solid jackpot moment for her. Sometimes a different treat can make all the difference!

Lazy Evenings

I am slowly getting used to work during the day. I am now fighting to stay awake and it's not that late. Bella has been the biggest worry of mine with those new work hours but my fiancé who has very flexible work hours has been going home for her. My plan is to allocate some walking time before work and soon after coming back home. Tonight we walked to the stables and fed the horses. The photos were horrible since the flash died on me.

Here's one shot from yesterday. I didn't catch Bella when she was lying on top of the dog. She's been bringing me an entire zoo in hopes of earning herself candy for cleaning up for me. She looooooves bringing me stuffed toys because she loves them herself. She got lucky when the soon-to-be seven year old daughter of my fiancé brought a few toys from her room declaring that there just wasn't enough space for them there. Bella was quick to take advantage of that and seems to enjoy the company of the stuffed toys. Incidentally, that dog came with a nametag... her name is Belle.

My problem is that I think the only space available for the stuffed toys is the kid's room! While I figure that dilemma out they've been chilling in the sofa. If they end up somewhere else Bella is quick to locate them and bring them back to me. Ah... the joys of training a dog that really enjoys it and constantly tries to engage me into "training her"!

Even toy stealing couch dogs get tired. This picture sums up how I am feeling tonight. Time for bed!

Obedience Test

Last Thursday marked the final Clicker-Obedience class. Me and Bella were unfortunate enough to miss three out of six, due to work, Berlin and me being sick. The last class was a series of a few tests and I was doubtful I should show up. I knew I wasn't fully prepared and wouldn't pass all of the tests but this is just for fun so I wasn't going to bail out with a bad excuse.

Bella was really quite good. We passed most of the tests and it was fun. Perhaps the biggest test we are starting to pass most of the time now is the "let's not bark at other dogs all the time if they come close" test. It wasn't a part of this little trial except in the sense that Bella's attention is on me rather than the other scary dogs.

It was a fun night and a nice pressure to do some small exercises as a part of a test to create a better motivation to pass. I'm very pleased with the course and am going to continue with most of the exercises at home. I also want to finish the hind end awareness exercise. I think that's one exercise that will be very useful if we master it. I am getting there slowly, I have been stuck with getting her to realise what the hell she is supposed to do while on the box but during the test she has a small breakthrough and I am working on continuing from there now.

In other news, my horse is coming tomorrow! Yes, I have a horse and he has now had over a year and a half off due to my pregnancy. I am very excited by this, it will be very interesting to see how Bella reacts to him. I probably should be more worried about how my horse reacts to her, he learnt a few years ago how to scare and beat up dogs after striking an ankle biting Border Collie. For a while I was certain he must have broken the dog's jaw, the noise was awful and the dog ran away like lightning. After I tracked it down there was some blood but he was unbroken. The dog didn't go near my horse after that. Smart Border Collie because after that my horse chased all the dogs that were near. The nice Border Collie cross included that wouldn't harm or harass anyone.
It's a good thing Bella is not a herding dog and she is not the type to harass and attempt to chase someone who is much bigger and heavier than she is. I think the two of them might get along. One thing is for sure, I will find out soon enough!

Sick Sick Sick

My household has been down with all kinds of pests since last Wednesday. I thought I was getting better but no, I had to stay at home from work today due to a really bad sore throat that cropped up yesterday. My son had it the worst, his sore throat turned into an infection and on top of that infection he got an ear infection.

I feel really bad for Bella. She's being a good sport but now she's starting to need her exercise. Yesterday I used the opportunity while giftwrapping two Christmas presents (I'm early this year!) and made her help me clean up in the living room. She's actually really good at it. I really ought to find out how to make her drop items into a container. I confess I haven't done it before because I can't decide what kind of a container I want to use for the training. Maybe it's an excuse to be lazy?

On Thursday we missed Obedience class and today we will miss Agility. I'm gutted! I really looked forward to both.

I have a big change coming up at work this month. I have been asked to be in the school unit from December until March to begin with. That means I will drop the shifts during that timeframe. Weekends off and more family friendly work hours.

Biking and Tracking

A week into November and me and Bella have already covered 18 km so far. A good start to our 50 km goal!

My fiancé overslept this morning so instead of him taking baby Magnus to daycare we split up and I biked him to destination. Bella was pulling the trailer like a husky, she's amazing.

I took her with me again when I returned to pick Magnus up and my fiancé was with me this time around. We're giving alternate routes a go, in the morning run I found out just how much traffic there is in the area. I did consider leaving Bella at home but she had planted herself in front of the front door so how could I? She ran like a champ although we did go a lot slower on the way back, she was running low on gas!

We were both feeling pretty cozy after that and thinking nice thoughts of the sofa when I remembered I had made an appointment after noon. Yes all the biking had happened before noon, 8 km in one day. I scheduled meeting my cousin because she was going to teach me how to track with Bella. She has two dogs and has trained them both for tracking, she has done considerable search and rescue training with them.

I really enjoyed this, even if there was a storm approaching and pouring down rain. We laid in total three short sausage laden tracks for Bella and I really enjoyed seeing her improve with each one. I have spent a long time wondering how to teach a dog to track and now I am starting to understand.

Seeing the trained dogs work was interesting as well, for the younger bitch she laid a track for her to follow and with the older one she asked me to head to the trees nearby and lie down. What amazed me was that she explained pretty much how the dog would go before finding me. She looked like such a pro, she ran downwind and when she caught a whiff of me she ran almost straight towards me and when she saw me, ran off to let my cousin know and together they came back.

Seeing people work their dogs is not a common thing but it is actually one of my favorite type of dog-watching. I like beautiful dogs but more than that I enjoy seeing a dog in the 'workzone'. A dog who is happy as a clam having a job to do.

I wanted to take my camera with me but because of the awful weather I didn't want to risk it. Thus, I only have camera phones of Bella! Maybe next time.