Wow, this dog training stuff is TOO much fun, especially when I get such marvellous proof of how well it works! My vacuum is in the shop - and appears to be settling in nicely, planning on staying awhile - so I splurged (that holiday thing where "since I'm spending money on everybody else I might as well spend some on myself") and bought a robot vacuum.

It was all charged up this morning and ready to go, so I pushed it's little button and got set to work on getting Syn comfortable with it. First thing I noticed, it's a lot quieter than the upright, so Syn's already more at ease with it, though it's kind of scary when it appears to be hunting her down. Here's a few minutes of her getting to know it. Second thing I noticed is that I'm so busy watching the little vac do its job that I'm having a hard time marking Syn's behaviour at the right time, so a lot of my Yesses are late.

But the excellent part is when Stitch came in and found us training. She knows she's not supposed to butt in, so she stays back and watches. At one point, she lay down to watch. The contrast between Syn just learning to handle the world around her, and 7-year-old Stitch having been through it all before - even well beyond wearing the "I'm a trained dog" t-shirt - is very funny. "Vacuum cleaner? I was here first!"

We have done a bit of training besides this, and went to another Open obedience class with Syn the other day - where she was once again remarkable. She did get away from me once when she hared off across the room to retrieve someone else's dumbbell - but I think I could have gotten her back if I had given her a dumbell-Zen cue and called her back rather than just standing there blubbering "Syn! Syn! Syn!". "Yeah," she replied. "I'm just gonna get this dumbell for you and then I'll be right there!" Oh, and she forgot how to stay, so I spent part of the class playing Chutes and Ladders with sit stays. Dear little Tat.