Appreciation

8/52: I Love Your Face, originally uploaded by mandypug.

I've had the week off from school which is nice. It gives me more time to spend with my dog which is heaven to me. It's nice to be able to just be with her. We went for a walkabout on my birthday (it was Monday, yay I'm old now!) and just existed together. It was nice to just connect, not training or working, just being. I think I'll do that more often.

I've also been working with one of the family Pugs on some agility foundation work. I'll likely never compete with her but it's good experience anyway, but jeeze does working with a 4 year old dog with ground in habits and no knowledge of how to think and learn ever make me appreciate Izzie so much more. I used to think Izzie was hard to work with because of the shady methods I used in her puppy-hood and how it's given her some fears and quirks, but she's cake compared to Chai who has only ever been made to sit all the time for everything.

Chai will get there eventually, it's a challenge but I'm not a quitter. Until then I'll be hugging my Izzie lots and showing her how much she means to me. I love her more than anything. My perfect little girl, even with her damaged eye.