Teaching an old dog new tricks

After 8 years I finally gave in and enrolled my dog into a basic training class. She is the oldest dog by 7 years. With three weeks of class under our belt, Ellie May can do a sit/stay, down/stay, heal and about turn. Although these all happen in her time and when she wants to do them. I think she just likes to go to because it gives her one-on-one time with me, and she gets to go for a car ride once a week. As for me I'm learning a lot. I always new Ellie May ruled me and I let her get away with things because she's cute and I love her. Now I have the instructor telling me I have to be firmer and make her listen to me.

Ellie May has always been a pretty good dog. She goes potty when I tell her too, she isn't a destructive chewer (unless she's mad at me and I have something with a zipper or buttons laying on the floor), she sleeps most of the day, she very gentle with the old folks when I take her to work and well...she just plain cute.

I guess the only thing I'm hoping for with going to class is that she'll learn to love Russ and play with him (she doesn't really care for other dogs, she likes cats) and that we'll graduate in August.

What happened to May?

What happened to the month of May? Seriously I don't remember it, but I'm sure having fun in June. I got to meet my cousin, Mara, from Australia. I have been in touch with her for about a year over facebook and I was so glad to be able to put a personality and voice with the pictures. She spent last weekend with me. I gave her a nice tour of the cities, although I had no idea where I was going and I got lost with the detours. I was able to take her to the Walker sculpture garden, the Dome, the new Twins stadium (from every direction!), midway stadium, a cement plant, Lake Nokomis and probably a dozen other places that I can't remember right now.

We went out on Friday night with my sister Katie and a couple of her friends to the VFW in St. Paul...good country band there and we danced a lot and we also went to Pickle Park to ride the bull. Saturday night, Tonya and I took Mara downtown for a night of gay bar hopping which turned into spending most of the night at a drag show at the '90's. Mara had never seen one before so we had fun getting watching the performers and then getting pictures with them.

Sunday Mara came to my softball games. She had never seen a softball game and I was able to work it so she had a chance to hit and do a little fielding...natural talent, must run in the family!!
I also took her to Maple Grove for some shopping and Cold Stone ice cream before we headed to Edina to pick up my aunt/her mom, Martha and drive them to Hastings.

Now that June is half over, I can finally get to some projects done around the house. Today I mostly finished the patio ( I ran out of pavers), mowed my lawn and the neighbors lawn, weeded the garden, watered my dead flowers in the hopes they'll come back and gave Ellie May a good brushing and trimmed her nails. What will I do tomorrow? Oh yeah, the folks are coming to watch me play ball. Should be fun!