What a terrific day for Pippy. We started the morning with a long walk at the hotel. At one point, I left an unattended scone on the desk and walked away. Pippy snagged the scone. This is a bad TRAINER moment – NOT a bad dog moment. I have not had the time to teach Pippy cues for wait, off, leave it, or down this week. That I failed to manage the situation was my fault. She just did what any normal dog would do – get the yummy stuff for herself.

I do not believe that Pippy barked at a single horse today. I could not be one hundred percent certain as she was in the kennel outside when not involved in behavior modification sessions. I was able to hear the dogs from where I was sitting and she was very quiet throughout the day - even when one of the horses was directly in front of her kennel. There was one point where I fully expected an outburst. I was unable to find a way to avoid passing very close to one of the horses just before one of our behavior modification sessions. She was a trooper and managed to pass by the horse with nothing more than making a few whining noises (and being fed a little bit of chicken).

She made HUGE progress in reducing the space between herself and another dog today. I even have hopes that we can begin a new protocol tomorrow afternoon where she parallel walks with another dog with a substantial distance between them. Like we have done with looking at a moving dog, we would plan on slowly reducing the distance between the dogs.

I believe Pippy managed to stay completely under threshold the entire day today. The vocalizations and behaviors I heard and saw today were those of a happy dog, who wanted to draw animals closer to her not chase them away. She even seemed to want to meet Pat’s pot bellied pig Sturgis today! I did not let them get very close, but I was ecstatic that she happily made the attempt.

In addition to our two behavior modification sessions, Pippy fully explored the tack room and barn. She found eggshells in the arena that must have fallen from a nest in the rafters and chased a few flies. She even climbed up onto a hay bale and checked out the food for the horses, mini-horse, burro, and pig.

She is now sleeping soundly on the bed while I do homework and type up this blog. This week has asked a lot of both of us, from stretching our creativity and flexibility to increasing our knowledge base and expanding our view of the world.

This is not the same Pippy I saw when we arrived a few short days ago. This is a much happier and confident girl with growing knowledge of basic manners, a sparkle in her eye, and a prance in her step as she continues to expand her horizons.