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Blogs by Vena McGrath
Thursday 15 February 2007 - 7.17 am 2/14/2007 12:02:49 PM
I'm still waiting for the roses and chocolates for Valentine's Day. Appears I've missed out yet again :) Shaye and I went to school on Tuesday night. He was naughty when we first arrived, barking at everyone, running this way and that and pulling me along with him. He weighs about 45 kgs so he is fairly strong. Had problems getting marked off the roll as he didn't want to stand still, then we had to get him a slip chain collar. Fortunately he stood still while the trainer put it on him and removed the other collar that had taken me ages to secure around his neck while he wanted to eat it and chew at me at the same time.
I asked for a couple of doggy poo bags just in case he decided to do the biz on the grounds, and then off we went for a walk to fill in some time. He has never been around so many people or more than one dog at a time, so this was just awesome for him I imagine. There were people all over the grounds and of course, dogs. He made the most noise barking a lot and I felt like a bad parent with a terrible toddler!
Class started and we lined up in the learner class - white group. The group was divided into two classes as there were 25 dogs started that night. Shaye refused to do what I was supposed to be getting him to do most of the time, and when he should have been up walking or sitting up, he would lay down and roll on his back. Ooops - bad doggie ! But one good thing, he didn't bark during class and although he was mostly sitting or lying with his back to the trainer, he didn't cause any havoc. I think that in four weeks when we are supposed to move up the classes Shaye and I will still be learners .... sigh*.
The rain has gone, or appears to be, and there is new grass growing everywhere. Nice to see but it will mean the mower comes out on the weekend. Bugga!
I finally have my eBook on my website now for sale and hopefully someone will buy the download and read it. I set the price at $12.99 to start with as I can bring it down bit by bit from there. It still took hours of my time to do some rewriting, to have a new cover designed, and to have the word document changed to pdf and all the setting up of PayPal etc on the website. Fortunately I have a friend with skills and Bryan did all the setting up for me. I tried to buy a copy to see that it was working as it should be but it wouldn't allow me to pay myself. How daft is that!
I've been busy at work, lots to do after being away for over a week. The stack is down a little but not much after 4 days of solid slogging. My eye hasn't been the best but yesterday it decided to behave at work and only packed it in last night. I was off to bed early as the pain was driving me crazy. It cuts into my time of a night when I could be doing some writing work as I just can't get into anything much knowing that I will have to log out at some point.
I managed to do 3 assignments so far in my jouralist course that I undertook and have about 9 more to tackle (sitting on my desk in large envelopes). Each assignment takes time to do and as nights are out for me atm, it's a weekend thing that I never seem to want to do. I did 2 assignments while I was home from work and the 1st one I completed late last year. Fortunately you get 15 months to complete the work. I hope I make it through but even if I don't it's all good experience.
I'm going to attempt to get into a routine with Shaye now and take him for walks of an afternoon. As I have the slip chain collar it's easy just to put over his head whereas before it was a mammoth fight to get his harness on so we could set off. Because of his sore legs that flare up I am often unable to exercise him so he hasn't been able to get used to the fact that when the harness goes on he goes out in the car or for a walk. So it's not all his fault, although he is misbehaving by not allowing me to get the harness on without a struggle. My darling Scrubber (cattle dog) used to stand and let me put it on with no drama and in fact, he would lift his leg and step into the section that his leg had to go through. Different dogs totally in many ways.
Must get going, it's time to harness myself up for another day of work. At least we are past hump day and it's all downhill from now on to the weekend.
