Model Behavior

Thanksgiving weekend at our house revolves around a few simple traditions:  loads of leftover turkey and hours spent untangling miles of light strings to be hung from every square inch of our house.  This is my favorite time of year and each year seems to be more fun than the last because of Tim's increasing understanding of and excitement about our holiday rituals.  

Most of our holiday decor adorns the front of our house so we all spent the better part of a chilly day sprawled out over the lawn, driveway and garage.  Charlie eagerly joined us and happily sniffed all of our kitsch.   

Of course I was thrilled to witness Tim's enthusiasm about this activity but what was really impressive was that Charlie remained off-leash without incident for the entire day.  Yes, off-leash in our front yard in this crazy state where everyone and all their brothers and sisters own at least one dog.  I attribute Charlie's compliance to Wendy the Trainer  who worked tirelessly with us on the "stay" command (I've learned that it's rarely the dog that can't be trained but the owner who doesn't really grasp the concept of consistency and reward.  ahem.)  Wendy also spent many sessions with us working on getting Charlie to ignore the distraction of other dogs.  (Wendy always makes a point to practice this skill with us at least once during all of our sessions.) 

 

I'm proud to say that Charlie was BRILLIANT all day and not once did he leave our property.  He was so well behaved that several folks actually crossed the street to admire him and compliment his extraordinary behavior.   And, as always, he obliged me with an appropriate photo to commemorate the day.