Merry Christmas to One and All!

Well, this is it.  One week today it will be Christmas. This means that Cooper gets two weeks off from Obedience school...he is happy about that! But we will keep at it, at home, every day, for short sessions at a time.  Training is actually fun and the best part for Cooper is that he gets to eats lots of treats, and some of those treats are quite high value for him!  I have to share with you a funny story.  This past Thursday, we attended his first Obedience class.  It was very good, 6 dogs with one instructor and the class lasted one hour.  During the class, Cooper got a bit tired of the treats he was getting, as such he was a tad excited and disrupting...to distract him, the teacher gave him a beef bone filled with Cheez Wiz.  He went crazy for the bone and ate all the Cheez Wiz.  Just imagine, his little face was yellow with gooey cheese.  It was actually funny to look at but very messy (personally, I didn't care for that look but I let it pass).  Needless to say that once we got home, the first thing we did was washed his face with soapy water.

I have to say that all the training that we are doing with Cooper is paying off (thank you Russell!).  We are seeing a HUGE difference when we take him for walks. The teacher says that, ultimately, when walking with a dog, we should not "feel" the dog at all, in other words, it should be as if the dog is walking by our side, with no leash.  Well, we are probably 80% there.  I went for a walk with Cooper twice this weekend, alone, for one hour each time, and I totally noticed the improvement.  It was as if we were just both out for a walk, walking side by side, looking at each other from time to time. I was very impressed.  I should add that during this afternoon's walk, Cooper and I came face to face - rather nose to nose with a Rottweiler.  I asked Cooper to sit, the owner of the Rottweiler asked his dog to do the same, and both dogs were just looking at each other, no barking, no pulling on the leash.  Then they nosed each other for a few minutes and that was that.  Nothing more, nothing less - doggie heaven.

This past week, we took Cooper to daycare for 2 hours at Doggie Central, The Garage.  This was our first time away from him since we got him 5 weeks ago.  The experience was very good for Cooper.  As for Russell and I, we had lunch at a restaurant literally 3 minutes away from the daycare.  It was actually nice for the two of us to enjoy a meal in a restaurant and we did have a good time, although we looked at our watch more than once. We both looked at each other at one point and realized that we really missed Cooper.  He is truly part of our family unit.

Other than that, it was a good week for all of us. My Christmas baking is complete, we are getting ready to go home for Christmas.  We first have to go to Huntsville this coming Tuesday to meet with Matt and tie up a few loose ends before the Christmas break. Matt is actually working at our lot all of this week, getting the sub floor ready.  We will bring Matt some of our Christmas cookies.

We also have to give Cooper a bath before we go home.  He will be smelling sooooo good and be all fluffy.  I just realized that, so far, the blog has been about Cooper, well almost.  He is just such a big part of our lives now that everything we do involves Cooper. Yesterday, Russell and I had to run a few errands so we took Cooper, and we each took turns to wait outside with him while one of us would go in to a store.  That reminds me, yesterday we had to throw away his favorite toy, a crinkle newspaper.  It was getting too dangerous for him to play with. So, while running errands yesterday, we went to every pet store possible to try and find this same toy.  No luck, until we found Pet Value, which had 4 "newspapers" left.  It turns out that this toy is now discontinued.  I bought all four!  I was like a kid in a candy store, so happy to have found Cooper his favorite toy.

I guess this is all the news I have for this week.  Cooper is now watching football with Russell, patiently waiting for his dinner. I now have to fill Cooper's stocking, and Russell's!  I hope you all have a great Christmas.  I will do my next blog around December 27.

Merry Christmas, from Anne, Russell and Cooper!  xoxoxo