So many things..

Wow. It's been a crazy couple of months.

I attended 3 days of Dr Sophia Yin here in Kamloops. She presented on a wide range of topics, and I took some notes which I'd like to formalize a bit to present here. In all my spare time..

Just before Dr Yin's weekend, I was given a month's notice of eviction. The septic system had been leaking into the creek, and the landlord chose not to repair it.
I spent the next month preparing to move. I did manage to eek out a weekend seminar with Stacy Peardot-Goudy and a one-day agility trial, but not much else happened.

We'd nearly completed the moving process when my grandmother was suddenly hospitalized. Life and moving were put on hold for 2+ weeks while we dealt with doctors and hospital crap. She's back home now, and hopefully will be fine.
So, Reiker spent a few days at Paws in Paradise in-home boarding with Nan. She was great and he did well. We finally got the motor home moved up here on Saturday, and I picked up Reiker.

Sunday was mostly spent unpacking some things, moving stuff around, and picking up a car from Kamloops (driving the motorhome out involved leaving a car behind).

Monday, we settled in. Reiker and I went for a walk down the "highway" for about an hour. He was on leash, we were with a friend and his little dog. To start with, both dogs were pretty amped and difficult to control, but within 15 minutes or so, they were walking side by side without paying any attention to each other. Reiker was quite reactive to the livestock along the road. Horses, cattle, llamas, sheep, and more! I crossed the road and walked down in the ditch in places to give him less of a view. He mostly did okay. It was really raining, so we turned back after about half an hour. He wore his dog pack, and carried some water for us. He was in his (well, archie's, since he destroyed his) gentle leader, and I also had the Newtrix on him. I tried it a bit, but found with the livestock, I needed the GL for control. He carried a Wubba the whole way.

Today, we went again. Chris came this time, with Gypsy. Same backpack, same route to start with. He was MUCH better behaved around the livestock this time. He seemed more tired, but it was much warmer out, so that may have been a factor. We stopped for a drink 3 times total, and the walk took us just over 2 hours. We went to the park, then through a back road/trail back home. By the time we were on the trail, I switched him over to a waist leash set up, and put him on his regular collar. He mostly stopped pulling, completely. He was pretty tired.

There's a sketchy, narrow, steep portion of trail on the way home just above the house. He has a decent stay, so I was able to ask him to sit, stay, go past him, then release him ahead of me, and repeat, for the steepest bits. He incidentally did some counter balance work to keep me upright as we made our way through the downhill. I was impressed by his self control.

Overall, a couple of successful adventures. Today's was much more pleasant given the good weather. I hope to take both dogs up the path to the road part to run soon, since Archie isn't so great along the highway.