"Birthdays"

So Cassie was 15 months old on Thursday and Sherman was 5 months old on Friday. We went to Chuck E. Cheese in CoMo w/my sister and kids on Friday (just b/c Chase is on cycle break and Mik is on maternity leave), so Shermy went to Kennelwood for a little refresher training course w/Miss Kari. Pics of our Chuck E Cheese adventures are on Mikki's page (www.hodgefamilyhappenings.blogspot.com).

When I took him in, I explained the challenges we were having. I've been ridiculously consistent w/his training. I'm a type "A" anal retentive housewife--I'm so consistent w/his training that I drive Jamie bananas. He doesn't think it's a big deal if Sherman's legs hang over his bed. I'll correct him 10 times in as many minutes for that b/c his legs aren't allowed to hang over his bed. IDK why, I didn't make the rules, but it's my job to follow them so my dog is well behaved and not a 90 lb out of control monster in a few months. Not to mention that the amount we've already spent on training is a small fortune, so I'm not going to waste that money, I'm going to do what I was told to do.

When we went to pick up Sherman, Miss Kari was walking him. The first thing she did was explain that while she knew I'd been consistent, often the dogs don't misbehave for her b/c their owners aren't quite as consistent at home as she is at school. IOW, they aren't as consistent as they think. But Sherman proved that wasn't the case and did EXACTLY what I said he would. In a perverse way, I was pleased to be right. So he's going back for a weekly "refresher" for the next month to reinforce what I'm doing at home. I was really pleased with him today, Kelly came over to pick up Dylan and I put him in a down/stay. Even though his tail was thumping like mad, he only tried to break the down/stay once (I was standing on his lead, so he couldn't actually get up) and then held it for a reasonable length of time before I freed to him to greet Kelly. He didn't jump on her at all and was quite respectably behaved for a five month old pup. I think the day training is good b/c while I work on his commands all day in a practical sense, the intensive training he gets there really hammers it home, KWIM?

In other news, I had Cub Scout Den Leader training today. Cass was up at 5:30am screaming, IDK why. She fell back asleep on me, but I didn't sleep much after that (go figure, I only had 25lbs of toddler on my chest) and then had training for 7 hrs today. Chase had baseball today, so Dad watched Cassie for a few hours. I do not know what we'd do if we didn't have Dad to help out--I guess I wouldn't get to volunteer quite as much... I'm actually looking forward to this Den Leader thing, scouting is actually quite a bit like sororities (except I'm working with first grade boys instead of college women) in regards to programming and community service, so it isn't quite the odd fit you'd think. I think we're going to have a GREAT year!

I'm off to bed. Sherman is wiped out on the floor next to me, so I suspect he'll be happy to retire to his crate for the night, and my bed has never looked so good.