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Working on Training

January 29th, 2008 | 3 Comments | Posted in dogs

I am trying to focus more on getting Caleb used to other dogs.  Whilst we may never get to the stage that Caleb will greet and play nicely with other dogs, I am hoping at least to get him to the point where he will not get himself all worked up when he spots another dog.  We have already gotten him to the point where his hackles no longer go up when he sees another dog, but he still jumps around and whines and if a dog gets too close he has been known to snap.  Therefore, I am working on taking more of an active role when walking Caleb rather than just holding onto the end of lead and trying not to get pulled along.  Also I want to try to walk the dogs twice a day (once in the morning and once in the evening) to see if I can’t wear them out and get them to sleep better during the night.

Today was day one and I am already so proud of my boy.  I tried walking him on a short lead and not letting him wander around and piss on everything.  He did so remarkably well, especially on his walk this evening.  Partway through the walk he stopped even trying to pull me over to a nice looking tree or lamp post.  He actually trotted along beside me, unlike Rory who fought the ’short lead, Mum gets to decide where we walk’ thing until she wore herself out.

We had three close encounters of the canine kind - one was two dogs being walked past us where Caleb jumped around but soon settled down, the second was a Golden Retriever about 5 meters away who Caleb failed to notice as he was so focus on sitting beautifully for me whilst I put the poop bag in the bin and the third was a dog walking past about a metre away and again we had one jump, but straight into a sit when I told him.  I was so very, very proud of him.

I think I broke Rory though.  As soon as we came home she threw herself onto the couch and promptly passed out.  She woke up for dinner and is now asleep at my feet.  She looks absolutely exhausted.  Caleb also has less energy, but somehow they both seem to find that little bit of extra energy if anything exciting occurs at the front door.

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Two dogs, one human

January 28th, 2008 | 8 Comments | Posted in dogs, life

On Friday, I will become a cycling widow for a month as Lelak leaves to cycle from Melbourne to Sydney.  It will just be me and the dogs - for a whole month.  Therefore, this morning we had a practice of going for our morning walk with two dogs and one human.  We have a double ended leash to which I attached a normal leash so that I can walk the dogs without tying to hold multiple leads.  I am now really, really glad that I taught the dogs the command “wait” because our whole walk went something like this.

“Wait” - as I untangle the beagle from the lead

“Wait” - as I yet again untangle the beagle from the lead

“Wait” - as Caleb tried desperately to pee without being pulled over by the beagle

“Wait”  - as Rory tries to poop whilst being dragged along

“Wait” - as I untangle myself from the lead

Eventually we got things worked out and we had a really lovely walk with no major dramas.  We even went for a bit of a run which the dogs loved.

I am not sure how the dogs are going to go with Lelak being away for so long.  I am sure after a week or so, they will be fine, but that first week is going to be rough for us all.  I can foresee two very clingy dogs who will be scared that I am going to leave them too.

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Dinner With Friends

January 27th, 2008 | 2 Comments | Posted in life

Last night to celebrate Australia Day, we had a good old fashion BBQ at Bin and Claire’s house.  Bin and Claire have just come back from living in the UK for the past 2 1/2 years.  It was so wonderful to see them again and it made me realise how much I had missed them whilst they were living overseas.  Dinner with them is always filled with laughter and discussions about delightful topics like farting and porn.  Oh yes, my friends and I are a classy lot.

The food they made was simply divine from the best potato salad ever to the most gorgeous marinated chicken thighs I have ever tasted.  I stuffed myself to the brim, so much so that at midnight when we finally left, I was waddling out to car.

I really love spending the evening with good friends and eating amazing food.

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Sydney Bloggers Meetup

January 26th, 2008 | 5 Comments | Posted in blogging, life

On Thursday night I attended the Inaugural Meetup of the Sydney Bloggers Meetup Group at the Old Vienna Cafe at the QVB.  I am not ashamed to admit that I was mighty nervous walking up to that cafe, but I shouldn’t have been because everyone there was really friendly.  There was a great mixture of experience bloggers, novice bloggers and a couple of people who were thinking about starting up their own blogs.

In attendance was Ian (Therin of Andor), Greg (Professor Null), James, the other Andrew (although at this meeting he was the only Andrew), John, Neerav, Evan, Tim and his wife Carmen and Keza and Frances who were brand new to blogging.

We all had great conversation about blogging platform, niche blogging, what we blog about and admiring those who had reached the lofty heights of problogging.

The only downside of the evening was that there was a person there from a media group who tried to use our group as a way to find out which up and coming hot new websites and social networking groups her company should buy.  I really didn’t think that this was appropriate.  We were not there to be a free resource for her company.

The next meetup will be on the 14th Febuary at the Old Vienna Cafe at the QVB.  If you are interesting in coming, please register here.

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A Knee Like A Balloon

January 26th, 2008 | 5 Comments | Posted in life

In the wee hours of this morning I was awoken by some impressive pain coming from my knee, on a close but blearly inspection, I saw that my knee looked really swollen.  I took off the tape that holds my kneecaps in place and hoped that for some wacky reason it was the tape causing the swelling.

At a more reasonable hour this morning when I pulled myself out of bed, it wasn’t hard to notice that my knee was still swollen and as I wandered around the house it was becoming increasingly painful. The weird thing is is that my knees never swell up.  I can be in massive pain and unable to put any weight on it, but the knee remains at its normal size, even though there may actually be some swelling in the joint itself. I have also done nothing out of the ordinary, I haven’t even been swimming this week since Monday.  Haven’t fallen or twisted it or done anything whacky like that.  No, it has just swollen up all on its very own probably because it knows I have things to do today.  I have to go grocery shopping this morning, have to go to an Australia Day BBQ this evening and the dog wash lady is coming to bath the furkids this afternoon.  I have places to go and people to see!  I don’t want to be dealing with a knee that is telling me that it is injured and will not be working today.

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