Saturday 9th May 2009

Everything is set up for Shadow to start her training classes on Monday. I must admit that I am a little bit jealous that she will be going and spending time with all the other dogs without me, but I only have myself to blame. If I hadn’t got carried away . . . but how often can each of us say that? The number of times we only have ourselves to blame is ridiculous. I don’t suppose you can expect other dogs to conduct themselves in a seemly manner if you haven’t learnt to do that yourself. I wonder if Shadow will be a quick learner and show me up. In my case it was never that I hadn’t learnt. It was more than I chose to ignore. I saw it as all being part of my right to independence, but I’m not sure that Shadow is quite as strong willed as that. She just approaches everything with ridiculous enthusiasm. She’s already had her paws in the village pond. Given the chance I think she’d have been in completely. That is not something you would find me doing. At this rate she is going to need a bath on a regular basis and she probably won’t even object to that, although I do think she will share the water very liberally with anyone who is within the room.

During the windy weather it has occurred to me that it is a good job that our house isn’t built the other way round. As it is we can have the back door open, even when it is windy and the door faces to the east and the wind is coming from the west. If we were the other way round and tried to leave the door open the whole house would have blown away by now.