More house time, and invisible-dogging

Tomorrow night is West's first obedience class!!! I'm hoping there will be a chance to get some video, but we'll see how it goes. There are 7 dogs in the class, including West. One of them is Lindsay's dog, so West sort of knows Lindsay already. I do not expect him to 'recognize' her in that setting though. A good friend of mine who has (i think?) a TDBCR dog, Claudine, is also in the class. She's very excited to 'see' West. A fellow trainer is taking the class with his golden, a client is in the class with her farm-dog-mix, and a couple others I don't know. It should be a nice class, I hope!

Yesterday, I worked all day and West went out for a ball play mid day with Chris, but otherwise did nothing fun. Poor West. He slept really well last night though; he'd been doing his 5am yap-attack for a few nights previous (only nights when I have to be up early. Sigh.) Monday, he spent some time in the house, though not quite as under threshold as I'd have liked (variety of factors). We'll back off that a little bit and work our way back up.

Right now, I have both boys loose in the motorhome with me. Archie is playing with food toys (that he ignores unless he thinks someone else wants them!) and generally preventing West from going anywhere, but things are improving as Archie relaxes, so I'm watching and waiting. West is playing invisible-dog in the corner, looking at the wall and giving awesome calming signals. I'd love to have both of them out more often, so I'm hoping this goes well!

And, I just got word that we're a finalist in a Premier photo contest! The photo isn't of West (it was for 'best dressed' dog, and I wasn't sure his Thundershirt would qualify!) but any toys we win WILL be for West (to share, of course) since he's the toy destructor. So, if you'd like to go give us a vote, we REALLY would like to win! They'll be leaving the voting open until next Wednesday.
Here's how to do it:
Sign into Facebook and visit Premier's page at Make sure you have 'liked' them. They don't spam or even post much, so this shouldn't be an issue.
Then go to The photo and comment "vote" under the photo. Thanks so much!