Pup and Circumstance

Last week Seamus graduated from obedience class. Tucker's mom Dale captured the class festivities in the picture gallery on her blog, where she also notes that Seamus was the best and most famous Beardie in the class. Indeed he was! Being the only Beardie is but a minor detail.

Every time you introduce something into a training situation, there's always the possibility that the dog will forget what he's already learned, and you need to do a little reviewing before you can go on to work with the new thing or situation. Seamus has never been great with the long stays; we're working through the fact that he's expected to sit there without even a magazine to read while he waits. Down-stays are better than sit-stays, but both went pretty far out the window when Greg came to class to shoot pictures for graduation. Seamus would wait a few seconds after the down, and then go rush over to Greg. I had to intercept him in the middle of his rush and put him back several times. This gives us something to work on, though.

We do hope to start in a Novice class in the fall, if the club is offering one or if we can find one nearby. We can do Novice Rally with some practice, and Dale and Tuck want to practice with us sometime. (Well, Dale does. We didn't really ask Tuck, but he enjoys a day out.) Our instructor is hoping to put together a group to take the AKC CGC test, and I put our names in.

"My name is Karen and I'm a stress junkie." "Hi, Karen."

Actually, that's not even faintly true. I don't thrive on stress, but it's such a continuous presence in my job that once I reach my deadline, it's actually difficult to adjust to a lower stress level. In a way, it's not all that different from detox, only my drug is adrenaline. I don't know how journalists do it; they have much more immediate deadlines and shorter delivery cycles, even if the works they deliver are about 699 pages shorter than mine.

Because our schedules have gone in two wildly different directions this year, Greg and I won't get an extended vacation together this year. He used up most of his vacation time attending the Bach Festival, and he has quite a lot of work to do before the next semester of grad school starts. He wants to get the Water suite orchestrated and into the conductor's hands as soon as possible, and he'd like to get the Sax Quartet performed at BU at the end of the semester, if he can get at least two movements ready by then.

I've been making plans to go to the Bearded Collie National Specialty show in Omaha this year. This will probably be the only real break I get this year, and I've really missed my Beardie buddies.