Charlie, a 9-year-old, female, border collie from Highlands Ranch, Colorado, needs a new home. Her family asked me for help. So, I’m asking all of you for help. Please spread the word in any way you can. Below you’ll find photos, a video, and a detailed Q&A about her.
I wanted to let everyone know that plans for my Be the Change idea are underway, and I’ve taken your concerns and questions to heart in how the coalition structures educational and giveaway ideas. If all goes well, we may be ready to roll out officially in the next 4-6 weeks. Since that’s a bit down the road, though, I wanted to write about my sense of these issues.
Lilly and I began our much-overdue 100% togetherness day on Sunday with a visit to Mom’s place (the assisted living facility). Lilly showed improvement in some areas, but … alas … one pretty “scary” thing happened.
Last Sunday, Lilly did the Tour du Grandmas, vising first my mom who now lives in an assisted living facility and then Tom’s mom who is home after more than two months away. I ran out the door without my camera. So, sadly, I have no photos or video to show.
When we told the physical therapists working with Tom’s mom about Lilly being able to roll a therapy ball around like a circus dog, they were excited to see it. So, on Monday, we took Lilly down to the residential physical therapy place so that she could visit her Grandma, see some of the residents, and show off. It went really well.
I shot a little video earlier this week of Lilly and Ginko playing chase and jaw wrestling games. For those who know Lilly’s noisy play style and stunted social skills, I’ll ask you to pay attention to how quiet this particular play session is. Ginko does many things to ensure Lilly continues to play, which is very smart and polite of him, I think.
Some days, my brain buzzes with larger, more philosophical sides to dog training. In part, this happens because of items I see in dog world news such as this dog training summit. At some point soon, I may rant a bit on that very topic since I’m not shy about the fact that I’m no fan of “He Who Shall Not Be Named.” But, today, I wanted to share a distinction I think will help.
Answer me this: When your dog responds to cues or offers default behaviors or just generally behaves like a civilized canine citizen, do you feel a sense of power or pride?
Last Friday, I accidentally pulled a terrible trick on my sweet Lilly. I rushed around in the morning before an entire day of eldercare efforts, and I didn’t realize what Lilly assumed based on various visual clues until I stepped toward the front door to leave.
I have no Katie news to share because our little social event got postponed last Sunday due to weather. It snowed. Not snowpocalypse or snowmaggedon kind of snow, but enough snow to keep Katie’s new family from coming up the canyon. BUT, I did manage to take Lilly to class last week. It wasn’t ideal, but here is our report.
Here is our new blog design for Champion of My Heart. Snazzy, yes? It took more work than you would imagine. Seriously … 14 tries until I got the new header image to work, including getting the ropes to line up (or close enough). And, that’s just one of oodles of customizations I made in the php and css on the code side of the blog. I still have much work, and many glitches remain from the change over in design, platform, and hosting switch, but I’ll get there — eventually.
