Ten Months with Hannah!

April was a strange one, everybody.

Hannah was sick again, so we're back on diet trials.  I feel so badly for her because we're clearly missing SOMETHING about what's making her sick and I just can't figure out what it is.  Our vet is sympathetic and has done tons of research, but all the blood tests have come back normal, which is GOOD, but doesn't give us good guidance about what to do next.

But we persevere.  After she missed a couple of weeks of daycare because of her illness and early closure of the kennel before it was deemed an "essential service," we have returned to taking her weekly. I do the whole exchange with no contact with any person. Hannah goes without a collar or harness. I get there, open the trunk, and Hannah zooms over to the gate where the kennel owner is holding it open for Hannah to race through.  When I pick Hannah up, I drop my payment in a coffee can on a picnic table about ten feet from the kennel gate, open the trunk, and the kennel owner opens the gate for Hannah to zoom into our car.  It's safe and Hannah loves being with her friends. I love that the kennel will probably still be open after all this confusion passes.

I have also been sporadically taking her to the dog park. Our county dog park is huge - over 20 acres for the big dog park. I use a tissue to open and close the gate and otherwise touch absolutely nothing. It's easy to keep social distancing because it's such an open space. But sometimes people don't abide by social distancing rules, so that's why I haven't been going super regularly. If I drive up to the park and people are congregating in huge groups, I just drive back home.

I've taken it upon myself to really amp up Hannah's training during this time. In the photo above, she's working on "stay" in a church parking lot (this is us moving from no distractions to low distractions). This church is behind our house and the parking lot is generally busy all the time, every day because it's used by people using a school associated with the church and the public middle school that's just on the other side of the church.  We've been doing some training here because it's not in as much use as it normally is.  She is also pretty grumpy in this photo, which I think is pretty indicative of every time I try to work with her on training outside of our "normal" training time before breakfast and dinner.

The squirrels! And rabbits! And chipmunks! And robins!

(Parenthetical paragraph: I had no idea that 1) robins were dumb birds who don't know enough to be frightened of my prey-driven dog and 2) robins REALLY do pull worms up from the ground - that's not just a cartoon-y kind of stereotype. Before these last ten months with Hannah, I would sort of notice that it was wild kingdom in our yard/neighborhood, but now I KNOW.  I know where the rabbits' burrows are, I know where the four outdoor cats live in our regular walking pattern, and I know just how incredibly dumb robins are.)

There are so many smells and things to see outside that walking Hannah is a lesson in patience for me. She will stop and sniff EVERY TREE you pass if you let her. So we're working on training "these are business walks" and "there are fun, sniffing walks."

If it weren't for Hannah and Zelda the Cat, getting up in the morning would be a chore. I look forward to getting up and letting Hannah out of her kennel while Zelda begs for food in a loud voice. I rely on our three daily walks to keep me sane and from going stir crazy. It is so much fun to do training sessions with her because she just picks everything up so quickly and wants to please.  Each time we come in from a walk, as she sitting by the door, I lean down to unclip her leash and I whisper to her, "you are good, smart, and beautiful and I am so happy you chose us to be your family." And then I hug her and we go inside where she begs for food.  Because she is, after all, a dog.