Donuts!!

One of the blogs I read religiously - among several - is
Chickens in the Road
http://suzannemcminn.com/blog


If you've not read it - you are missing out!
Suzanne has the life I crave - worked her butt off to get it too. I want what she has!
Well, I'd have more dogs. And a dog training business. And probably no sheep. Sheep are silly creatures, full of wool and nonsense.

But other than that!!!

Today she wrote about making donuts. I'm not working outside the house today. And - I have a sick kid so no church. I'm staying home and loving every second of it.

And I'm making donuts.


I realized I'd been relying on my bread machine way too much. I can't remember the last time I kneaded dough. Luckily like riding a bike, it came right back. A soothing routine that makes all things right with the world.

Check out her blog if you haven't. Its worth the trip.
And I'd offer you a donut - but even the sick kid isn't so sick he won't eat donuts till they are all gone.

Doggie goals

One of my great joys in life is setting - and then achieving - goals. I don't really make resolutions, but instead set intense, involved, specific, focused goals. Short term, long term, map out all the steps along with way. Its a fault. But - not one of my worst ones!



Some of the doggie things I'm planning to do this year:

Take a clicker class. I just don't work with the clicker enough to be comfortable with it. I'm looking forward to expanding my clicker skills to share with others.



Do some volunteer work with one of the local shelters. There are several to chose from, and I need to become more involved. Couple hours a week.



Better follow up with clients. One class session does not cure all. Especially puppy class - usually the babies have long graduated before they turn adolescent. And adolescence is often just as fun with dogs as with kids.



Take an on line class, preferably focusing on service dog training, but whatever I find that intrigues me.
Become more of an on-line presence.



Continue working on my dog writing with the goal of publication in bigger venues.



Work on my picture taking skills. Maybe a class for that, too!


Shut up and listen more. Hard to learn anything when the mouth is moving.

Salesman in the making

Day off yesterday! So I did the mommy-thing, cleaning, laundry, errands and cookie baking.

While I made some of the favorites, the traditional Christmas cookies - I also tried a new recipe that shall forever remain nameless.
After eyeing them very suspiciously, my youngest bravely tried one. He took a bite. Then he laid the remaining bit down on the counter and said "Mom, lets not eat anymore of these, okay? I think we need to save them for Santa."

I bet Santa won't like them either.

testing

<

Just a test to see how my real pictures come out on here.
Wow - I'm turning techie. Who knew??

Quote of the day

"Mom, I couldn't make it to the bathroom, so I just threw up on the floor," Nervous glance in my direction. "that was okay, right???"

sigh...............

Monitors, kids, and motivation

Going, going, gone - my computer went down the other day and getting it back up took some doing. But - new monitor now - and man, does my blog look NICE on it! Impressive job I did. I missed being here.

One thing that I contemplated this weekend was thoughts of motivation. I have been threatening my fourteen year old daughter with dire consequences over her soon to be condemned bedroom for a while. I'm pretty lenient with the kids' rooms, to a point. She has gone above and beyond this point. "Clean your room or no computer" I say. She smiles and just stays off the computer. "Clean your room or no MP3 player!" She smiles and hands it over. And she's just so Darn cute its hard to be upset with her.

But this weekend I found the motivation it takes. "Clean your room or no school Monday and we will clean it together." She said "Mom, that's just weird! Beyond weird, the weirdest threat I've ever heard!!"
However.
I woke up to a clean(er) room this morning. She loves school.
Find that motivation. Kids, dogs, they all have one. Trick is to find it, and use it.

My Spare Time

And here is one of the things I do in my spare time - hang out at the Ta Kwon Do center and watch my little one kick. (In case you are wondering - mine is the cute one.) Don't all those white clothes on all those kids make you cringe in laundry do-er dread??

Blog Play, Goal play

I'm not the most computer literate person in the world, but I've been working on figuring things out. I see a lot of options for the blog I've not yet been able to access. Well, access mentally, I'm pretty sure my computer could do it if my brain would but cooperate. Pictures are next on my list to play with.
One day, after I've been posting for more than a week or two, I hope to upgrade this to something more personal, more viable for what I want to do, to help in my dog training business. Blog first, website second.
That is part of my long term goals. And I have so many of those.
Right now, I'm teaching group classes, puppy, beginner, advanced, and private lessons. I want to expand. I want to do in-home training - go to your house and help you train your dog in your real life situation. I want to do board and train, take your dog into my house, work on the basics and then show you how to keep up that training. I want to train service dogs. Helper dogs, for whatever reason people might need them. I'm thinking that will be a huge part of my eventual business.
This morning I was reading in the August issue of Dog World about niche breeding. Perfecting the Guide Dog. It seems to be a very big business, and all I want is one little part of it, to help my little corner of the world.

If wishes were puppies

I'm on the lookout for a puppy. A puppy that can grow up to be a demo dog for me - one I can take everywhere, practice all my new techniques on - try different ways, show off what I can do. I won't be getting one very soon, so I'm checking things out. Like I tell people at work - anticipation is half the fun sometimes!

Do I want a purebred from a breeder or do I want to rescue from a shelter?

Do I want a big dog, small dog or a happy happy medium?

Shall I get one at 8 weeks and raise him from the very beginning or get one just a bit older and not have to hassle with all the puppy issues?

Male or female or does that even matter?

Do I want something easy to train - golden, lab, cavalier, papillon or something that offers more of a challenge?

Will I take new puppy to work daily from day one or wait till s/he's ready to show off?

I'm enjoying scouring breed magazines, dog books, quizzing all the people I see about what kind they got, where they got the dog and how happy they are.

Wonder what other questions I should be asking myself? What did you ask before you got your dog?

Kate
dogtrainingwithkate5@yahoo.com

Welcome!

My name is Kate and I'll be your dog trainer today. Actually, more than likely, probably, you will be your own dog trainer and I'll be the one standing on the side gently suggesting 'try this instead'.
As the days and weeks go on, I'll be talking about my philosophy of training, and yes, indeed, I have one (boils down to basically 'do what works'). I'll chatter about the fun times in puppy class, the great strides of improvement in beginner class, the fumbles as I learn to click with some of my students, and my goals for the rest of my life - which I hope includes your dog.
Welcome. Now, lets see if this posting thing really works.........

Kate
dogtrainingwithkate5@yahoo.com