Canine Good Citizen

I'm now officially Miss Dirona, CGC.  I passed my canine good citizenship test last month and my certificate came today.  I have to admit that I just barely passed.  We took the test at my mom's friend's mini farm and there were so many distractions!  Turkeys and chickens and guinea hens and dogs, oh my!  It's an easy test except for my getting distracted and ignoring mom.  All I have to do is sit, down, (I even threw in a roll over, just for fun), stay, come, walk politely as mom and her friend with another dog pass by and shake hands, someone else handles my ears and paws (no problem with that -  I love people!), I get taken away while mom leaves for 3 minutes and I not supposed to act up - that was easy too except for the male dog trying to mount me, and finally weave thru a crowd without pulling on my leash.  Fortunately they give me more than one try to pay attention and not pull on the leash.  I'm a lot better now in everything mom asks me to do.  I even heel at Lowes and Home Depot and don't pull on the leash - mostly.

My sprained hock is a lot better now.  Not getting to run around for 5 weeks was really hard.  Mom took me on some walks after 3 weeks when the vet said she could.  We went to the C&O Canal with my pack and I got trash for her and brought it back up to her.  She put some of it in my pack.  Getting the trash is fun!  Mom is so pleased with me.  We got to a camp where there was a lot more trash.  She tried to tie 2 bags to my pack but they slipped and I got spooked and ran.  Mom took them off of me and carried them herself.  She had 4 bags and I had another in my packs.  My pack isn't very big so it can't carry much.  I get excited and pick up sticks too because I want mom to throw them for me but she tells me to drop them and get the trash.

Trashy Dog!

but in a good way

We went again and got 6 bags of trash.  Mom carried 5 of the bags but said I should have a bigger pack.  The trash isn't heavy but it gets bulky -  mostly bottles people are too piggy to carry out despite the rules.  And the green pack slips off center.  She ordered me a new pack and it came today -  a large size but better designed than the one I had.  It's a Mountainsmith.  It was a bit big but mom got some clips to narrow the width of the back so it raised up a bit and the front strap goes across my chest instead of just above my legs.  It has a strap that goes between my front legs too that should keep it from slipping.

Mom is thinking about getting me a little cart to pull.  I would have to learn a lot of new things.

New pack is a little big

Pack with clips to shorten a bit