Edgar's Obedience Class, Part 3 & 4...plus pandas!

I have to admit, I wasn't expecting anything too exciting to be on the front page of the Atlanta Journal Constitution when I picked it up this morning. Wrong! It turns out that the panda couple at the Atlanta Zoo finally had a baby yesterday! Yippee! I am thrilled, especially after watching the pandacam at the National Zoo in DC last year when they had a baby. Will definitely have to go to the zoo once the baby goes on exhibit.

http://www.ajc.com/living/content/living/stories//2006/09/06/0907LVpanda.html

Its hard to believe Edgar only has one class remaining--graduation day! We are to come prepared with tricks, to try to win a trick competition. I started working with him on "roll over", which he is picking up pretty fast. I want to ask Jeff how he taught Spike to play dead after you shoot him with your fingers in the shape of a gun and say "bang!". That would be great!

Let's see...we have been working on variations of stay, wait, and down. And continually working on walking on leash in heel. It was more difficult to do so this past weekend, as we were dog-sitting Davinci. Walking two dogs is infinitely more difficult than one, especially when they want to sniff everything. I did get them to eventually walk heeling, one on the left and the other on the right. Improvement!

We have been making an effort to get Edgar out into the doggy public more. A couple of weeks ago we went to a dog park with him for the first time and met up with my co-worker, Amber, and her dog, Zena. Edgar did really well, and we were most impressed with how he never strayed to far from us. He always kept us in sight. Even when I walked over to the water fountain to refill his bowl, he followed me there. He didn't play like we expected him to, but he may have been overwhelmed with all the dogs there, and it being his first time and all.

This past weekend we took the two boys to Henderson Park nearby for a walk. The trails were done by an Eagle Scout for his project...and were occasionally hard to follow which path you should take. We did meet quite a few other dogs on the trails, mostly off leash. Both dogs were very good around these loose dogs. Which was good, because I am unsure as to Davinci around some dogs, but maybe thats more just when he is at home, protecting home turf. And boy, were they hot and dirty when we were done! I just need to start keeping a towel in the car, I guess. Thank goodness I had something to cover the back seat from dirty paws.

Unfortunately for us, Tuesday seems to be the designated rain day every week, because, of course, we are outside. Doesn't life always work this way? So we had class during some slight rain sprinkles, it didn't end up too bad, thank goodness. At class this week, we started to work on "come". We must practice more during the week, Chad and I have been bad at this! Edgar does really well for the little we work with him. Shame on us! I have resolved to be better this week. He did play more in the pre-class play time. Finally getting more involved...and more tired. Which is the best part! Since I have the weekend off, I would like to get him to another dog park near us, this one supposedly has some of the obstacle course pieces, which I would really like to try with him. One dog training place in town does offer a course on that, which I am considering, but not till next summer or spring.

We should have a busy weekend. The Yellow Daisy Festival is going on at Stone Mountain Park, I may go alone or drag Chad (and I really do mean drag him along), and we are seeing a Cubs/Braves game on Saturday night. I am really excited about this, and it will be Chad's first baseball game. We bought seats from a season ticket holder, and they are great. Right over by third base and the dugout, section 102, row 2! Will have to take camera with and take some pictures of our seats and view. Chad and I also have a date planned for Sunday, he is picking the restaurant. Once I got Edgar, our social life has dropped off alot, its sort of like having a small child around at this stage, anyway. So I am really looking forward to that. I love weekends off! I feel more like a normal person, with a non-retail job!