Miss Congeniality

This past Friday, Penny finally had her first graded show-and-tell and her trainer is so proud of her for getting good scores on all seven basic commands. On five of them, she scored a perfect 10; on the other two, sit and heel, she scored nine and seven, respectively. Those were only lower because she sits side-saddle rather than sphinx sometimes, and her heel was still angled away rather than parallel with her trainer. But they have plenty of time to perfect those and shape them correctly.

Her trainer has been gradually increasing her water intake and it seems that she's okay drinking at 5 a.m., 8 a.m., and noon, and just a little hot water added to her dinner at 4:30. He's also been using ice cubes as treats but hasn't been giving them past 4:30.

Her jump and off commands, simulating getting in and out of a vehicle, are both great now. She has no hesitation with either one and she did great with the guard stairs again, but was actually too fast coming down and jumped off the last two steps. So next time, her trainer is going to walk slow or going down to slow and control her pace better. He hasn't heard anything about using the full flight of stairs in the other building yet, but hopefully she'll get even more practice soon. She's been great playing with toys and is quicker to give now, especially when there's another toy to swap out for it. She's been doing well with the secondary and alternate trainers too and has continued to show her loving, affectionate, and outgoing personality to everyone she meets.