Visits are like Christmas

My friend Laurie just left after a wonderful week-long visit.  Saying good-bye to my dear friend until next year always brings a bit of sadness and reflection.  It DOES seem a lot like Christmas as in first there's the anticipation of the event, the event itself with much enjoyment, and the letdown once the event is over with.  So here I am in Letdown Phase.  But as always, it was a good visit.
She is an accomplished Obedience trainer and is willing to share what she's learned with me which I greatly appreciate.  And being a good friend, she is honest with me which is the most valuable thing a friend can be.
The first hole exposed in my training was with Pinch.  She asked if I'd ever done much work with him away from me (like go-outs).  Well yeah a little but I'd pretty much back shelved it for quite awhile.  So we tried and quickly discovered Pinch does not understand what a correction means.  As was much discussed in Melinda's blog, so much negative connotation is attached to that word.  When I say "correction" the dog is not punished and no one is angry.  The dog is made to understand that it wasn't right and needs to find another solution.  Pinch - with the mildest light scruff - completely freaked out, so much so he couldn't focus enough to find a solution (i.e. The Right Way).  This is basic foundation stuff  and I'm so glad this was discovered before we entered the Real Obedience ring.  The wheels would have fallen off big-time once we got out of Novice.We are backchaining on lots of stuff while moving forward in other areas.  He will start the Beginning Utility class at Renee's to help build his self confidence and get him used to working away from me.  Heeling needs to almost go back to square one.  That, and I need to make more effort to expose him to different sights and sounds.  Pinch will come to work with me one day a week to help with this.
Moto was the biggest and most wonderful surprise of all.  Laurie has seen his sloppy obedience work and came up with the idea of having him work for ALL his meals.  The turnaround was amazing.  I have an up and happy dog that is putting great effort into his work.  It's translating to other areas of his life also:  he was pushy in herding - a first - and is beginning to stand up for himself in the still evolving new pack order.  We hope to slowly translate this over into ring work.  If so, there most likely still will not be an OTCH in progress, but I will have a dog that enjoys being with me in the ring, where I am the cookie, and that is the most important thing of all.  If I have that, and a dog who gives me effort, then it's been a good day at the show.
Then of course there was all the fun we had.  So many restaurants, so little time!  And we got caught up in the feather craze, thanks to Steve Tyler (of American Idol fame).  We each got one, then it turned into several.  I feel like quite the fashionista now. 
Between rounds of eating there was shopping, seeing "The Help" (which I highly recommend) and of course training.
But now it's back to the Real World of two jobs, volunteering, and, upon putting a pair of jeans which were shockingly tight, a diet.  It was SO worth it.