Recap of last week

Pretty good week for us! Very busy on the weekend working my two dogs, while the rest of the time things mostly revolved around our multitudinous walks and recuperating from them.

Thanks to the e-collar, Kaline is now participating in off-leash long down-stays with the “big dogs” at training. Big dogs for now mostly consist of Rio, Peter the Poodle, Xena, Cooper, and sometimes Lucky the Golden. Thursday he was totally awesome. We used him as part of a weaving course and he was down out there for a couple hours. As a reward, at the end all the big dogs got to romp about off leash in the field. (Yes, we have special permission to have dogs off leash in the park, unlike the assholes. It's cause Freddie pays to be there and cause of the e-collars—our dogs will come back, unlike the randoms.) Kaline's recalls are getting so sharp and nice! His fronts in those situations are super sloppy, but man, you call him while he's playing and he turns on a dime and comes racing back. I hardly ever have to nick him.

The next day, Friday, we had three walks and then I planned to take Kaline to a double feature at the Stannie. Knowing that the walks would probably not be enough, before the movie I took him on a quick public access outing to Triple-A, then let him loose in Eleanor Pardee Park (wearing his e-collar) where he ran himself ragged playing with a little black poodle mix. It was awesome. And while he did pop up multiple times during the movies, he was a lot better than the last time. Yay tired puppy! Chief, Sonja and Hendrik joined us for the second movie, Rear Window. Kaline was super thrilled to see his best little buddy.

Saturday, Kaline and I met not only Sonja and Chief, but also the girls, Jolanda and Josephine, to walk around Stanford! It was very exciting to see the girls. They were totally perfect, ambling about off-leash among all the activity on the various athletic fields. Kaline was pulling and being a pain a lot, but a very cute pain. At the end, I let him run around with the girls with his leash dragging, and clearly our collar practice is working, because every time I called, he came (or left it, as the case may be), even though he wasn't actually wearing the collar. The girls were quick to correct him whenever he got out of line. I should've brought Juno but I didn't quite realize until I was in the car that we were doing a very off duty outing! We didn't take any pictures, how terrible of us.

Juno got to come along to dinner with my parents, aunt, and uncle. She was barely visible the way she curled up under our table. When I had to go to the bathroom, we had to wait in a very narrow hallway with waiters going back and forth with plates of food. Juno stoically just held her block in front of me, not even turning her head to acknowledge or sniff the waiters, and just as importantly, not shifting to get out of their way unless I told her to. Grin.

On the way back to the table, a random patron just reached out and started fondling Juno's face. I was tempted to reach out and do the same to him, and ask, “Do you like it when complete strangers mush your face/hair around?!” but his head looked greasy. So I just was indignant and talked to him like a badly behaved toddler. Hopefully he learned his lesson.

Sunday, Kaline did his usual public access in the morning. Our highlight was in the Farmer's Market. Kaline was behind me, blocking, when a tiny little boy barely taller than Kay himself, came up and began stroking Kaline's neck. I had no clue it was even happening until the dad gently pulled the kid away and explained why he couldn't pet Kaline. But I was super proud, cause my puppy who adores children had held his block and his focus through the entire thing! We also got to do some education with the Girl Scouts who were selling their delicious cookies.

Right when we got home from our outings, Sonja called to offer me an extra ticket to the symphony! How exciting! Symphony = big crowds and a huge need for a very quiet dog, thus Juno. So off we went.

We had such a good time. The people at the symphony were extremely friendly, though not terribly concerned with not invading personal space which got my anxiety up a lot. They were totally fascinated by wee Chief and Juno. Juno was totally nonplussed by the crowds and wouldn't respond to anyone's attempts to pet or love on her. I freaking love that about her. Some guy at one point reached for her and she turned her head away from him in an unmistakable we-are-NOT-buddies gesture. She also did lovely lap-ups for me when I needed major calming.

Chief and Juno holding our tickets for their admiring public.

Hold practice during intermission. Cutie pies!!!

Juno doing a lap-up in the symphony hall.

And of course, she was totally silent and never popped up during the amazing performance. The organist was Cameron Carpenter and I was floored by his talent. You have to be an athlete to play the organ! Each of his feet and each of his hands were doing totally different things, playing different parts of songs, and not only that but fiddling with innumerable buttons and knobs while still continuing to play the songs! It was totally insane. He wore fabulous sparkly pants and shoes so you could really see his legs gliding about on the foot keys. At one point he made the organ basically fart, and I was thinking, Man, Kaline probably would've barked at that noise! Whenever I take him to his first symphony, I will be a total wreck!

Look at this crazy instrument and bow to the awesomeness of Cameron Carpenter!

We went to the same Italian place we went to with Ashley and Rebekah, and there was drama that I missed (dammit!) while in the bathroom. Sonja told me about it after. This woman at a nearby table flipped out when she saw Chief, saying she had severe allergies and would get bronchitis. Obviously, both severe allergies and service dogs have to be accommodated, not one or the other.

Sonja suggested they get moved to another table, since there were only two in her party and five in ours. She said they were in the middle of dinner and couldn't possibly move. Well, then you just have to deal, don't you? Then her partner jumps in and says dogs can't be in restaurants. Idjit. Sonja of course replied that service dogs are allowed, and asked the waiter if they could be moved. The woman wouldn't move, so everyone just sat back down.

And wouldn't you know it, she lived through dinner!

We had a delicious time, and Juno was perfect. It's so much easier to concentrate on eating when I'm with Juno, heehee.