Just Hangin' Around

Bushnell, FL - Events of Wednesday, January 23 to Saturday, January 26, 2013

We really haven't been doing much since the Tampa RV Show. Paul started feeling a cold coming on the day of the show, so we have been taking it easy ever since. It certainly wasn't the cool, rainy weather the day of the show that caused the cold, but being out in that weather may have made things worse because this cold was a doosey.

By the following Wednesday, Paul was finally starting to feel a little better, which was a good thing because Wednesday was Freeway's puppy class at PetSmart in The Villages. The dogs got a little play time at the beginning of the class before we got to our lessons.

Play time before training class

Last week, we were having difficulty getting Freeway to the starting position to teach him to heel. Getting the dog into position is called the "place" command, and the goal is to get the dog to come to his place sitting facing forward right beside your foot. Getting freeway to sit is easy, but getting him in the correct position isn't. We worked on that during the week, and we thought we had made some progress. However, when we got to class there were many distractions, and Freeway had trouble paying attention. Without being able to get Freeway into the correct position, we didn't accomplish much with the "heel" command that the rest of the dogs got to practice in class. Therefore, we had our work cut out for us to try catch up before the next class.

In the days following class, we practiced our training with Freeway around the motor home and around our site, and we also went to the dog park to practice in a more public place. Distractions make training harder, but that is one of the things more advanced training is all about - getting Freeway to obey even when he's tempted by other sights and sounds. We are still having difficulty with the "place" command to get Freeway into position by our foot; but once he gets there, the "heel" command is going relatively well.

Margery and Freeway practicing the "place" command

Freeway, heel!

One evening, Margery decided to start a crochet project. Freeway was very interested in her ball of yarn. He jumped up on her lap and began playing with it.

Hey! Put that down!

Ball of yarn starting to unravel

We had to practice the "leave it" command to avoid ending up with a tangled mess. Freeway was still fascinated with what Margery was doing with the yarn and eventually settled in and just watched her crochet.

Freeway eventually left the ball of yarn alone and just watched

Margery recently 'liked' the Facebook page, Join the Love, which is a guild of crafters working together to create memory blankets for grieving families. The blankets are made of donated granny squares that are stitched together to make memory blankets for families who have recently lost a child. After going through the jury process, Margery is now eligible to sign up to contribute granny squares to individual blankets being created based on the child's favorite colors and likes. This kind of compact project works well in our small living space, and the variety of granny square patterns are endless. She's going to have fun!

Saturday was Blueberry Hill's annual, resort-wide yard sale. We had several items we were looking to get rid of, so we set up a table in front of our site in time for the 9:00 a.m. start of the event.

A potential customer stops to check out our yard sale items

The weather was beautiful so we had a fairly good turnout. People even came from other campgrounds located nearby to look. We didn't sell much, but it helped clean out our storage bays a little.

With Paul on the mend from his cold, we are definitely hoping we can be a little more active. We'll let you know what we found to do in our next post.

Comments

[Marsha]

You sure freeway is not part cat. When I bring out the ball of yarn, Bella goes crazy. I thought it was just a cat thing.

You are showing us how freeway is acting while he learns the commands, don't forget to show us what he does once he's learned the commands. We must give him kudos for his good work.

Hope Paul is feeling much better now. So far we have escaped the cold and flu. Hope I did not just jinx us.

[Janice Evans]

I got a chuckle out of your "yard sale" stash. . .how is it that there's always stuff to be gotten rid of?

We have three boxes in the back seat of the truck!

Freeway is adorable. . .