Rainy Thursday

Very. Rainy.

As in Pouring.

At least it's not 3 feet of snow, like Colorado.

I was going to go meet my sister tomorrow, and we were going to just hang out and do sister things--show each other our knitting, go to a yarn store (or two), go to Barnes & Noble. But she e-mailed me today to say she couldn't make it. I'm really disappointed. I was really looking forward to it. Also to getting out and driving!

Ah well. We'll set it up for another time, I hope.


I guess I'll do what I usually do when I take a Friday off--pay bills, run errands, buy groceries. It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so I'll find a movie to put in the player and work on my nephew's sweater. I'm sort of stuck on the first sleeve--I've ripped it out 3 times so far, which I guess is what happens when you're making it up as you go. If you don't like it--rip it out and try it again.


Oh yeah, I got an e-mail from the guy fixing my computer to say they ordered the part last Tuesday and just heard today from the vendor saying it was unavailable, so they've ordered from another vendor. *sigh*

I took the dogs out (individually) last night after dinner to work on their walking, and decided that I'm going to have to train them to sit at the top of the front porch steps and wait for me to get down to the bottom before they go. They get so excited, and the leash isn't quite long enough, and my knees are giving me such problems that one of them is going to just drag me down the steps if I don't teach them to wait.

Meanwhile, I found that if I ask Timber to do things--sit, come to heel, down--he pays more attention to me and does a better job of walking politely beside me. Taenzer does fine with a click or a "yes!" and a treat every few steps, and we're doing pretty well--we made it two driveways down last night! But Timber really needs more help to focus, I guess.

I'm not a very good clicker trainer, but I like trying to find a way to communicate what I want with rewards. Letting the dog hit the end of the leash is negative reinforcement, I'm afraid, and for P+ trainers it doesn't mollify matters much that I'm using a rolled leather collar and not a choke or prong collar. STill, my neighbors and friends think I'm looney not to use more traditional training methods, so I'd really like to make this work this way, if I can.


Sheesh, it's raining so hard it sounds like someone's pouring a giant bucket of water over the house!