Happy Holidays

I took KD to the shelter on Friday as we are out of town for the weekend. I was taken aback by seeing Watson at the shelter. He seems to have gotten noticeably taller since I dropped him off on Tuesday. He is starting to get some of that lanky hound dog look to him. Everyone at the shelter really likes him and he seems to be doing fine. I brought bones for Watson, Valerie and KD. KD didn't seem pleased to be put in her kennel at the shelter. She looked at me as if she wanted to know what she did to get returned. I will pick her up on Monday and she will be happy to see me.

I read Cesar Millan's second book this weekend. It is pretty good and I especially like a couple of tables to analyze what is normal and what is problem behavior. I am having some difficulty visualizing what he means when he talks about calm-assertive. I understand the concept, but visualizing it in myself is the difficult part. I know that we could have done better with Watson and that KD needs some work on meeting new people. I can see that I need to use his no touch, no talk, no eye contact rule for having new people come in the house that the dog hasn't met and let the dog approach them on her own terms. There is some good stuff in the book. Next on my reading list is Good Owners, Great Dogs. I checked them both out of the library and I will start reading through it tonight after we get back from the library.