Moving home...

I'm moved into my parent's house while reassessing my life.
Better mood today so far.
I chatted with two friends yesterday, so maybe that helped,
I also got Chandler out for an hour long walk this morning,
so we've both exercised.

I decided to try him on the shorter flexi lead, as I was wondering if some
of the nervousness I've been seeing in him was due
to not being able to maneuver on the 6 ft lead.
It seemed to work a bit, so I'll try using the flexi for a while.
At the least, if he starts at some noise and I just keep on going,
maybe he'll get the idea that he's being silly.

I'm otherwise pleased that Chandler has been behaving so well
while the cats are outside for their "walk".
He's been leaving them alone when I tell him to
and mostly lying around in the grass while I watch the cats.
The only slight problem I have is that he tends to want to
charge in when they are stalking rodents, or if the cats start running.
But he took verbal corrections very well today for such misbehavior
and lied down when I told him to.

The books are unpacked, and I've been sorting through
all my stuff to see what I can clean out.
Cleaning out books is tough, but I keep telling myself
I'll have more shelf space to buy MORE when I finally move out
and get my big bookcases back.

Vacation

Well...apparently I still have some work to do with the boy.
I think the change in location freaked him out a bit.

He broke out of and destroyed his nice big canvas crate,
which I hadn't expected, given that he had been fine at home.

He was also alerting to every sound in the hall, which he doesn't do at home.
At least by the end of the week I had got him to cut down on barking and charging the door.

He still has issues with men, and was unfortunately starting to show some more dominant challenging of guests coming into the apartment. Getting banished to the patio for 5 minutes seemed to improve his attitude, but I think I need to work on doorway/doorbell behavior.

That said, he was pretty well behaved around the apartment, aside from two retrievals of stuffed animals from the bedroom. He was a bit TOO fascinated by Lucy the hamster, but biddable to correction and banishment from the room.

The good news is the kids screaming (in fear of dogs) and then chasing him (what the HECK is with that?), does not seem to have traumatized him for life. He's been ok around kids since.
(Edit 2010: Actually I spoke too soon on this one, the incident set off a nervousness around kids that I worked 3/4 of a year to fix. )

He had a really good time at the Maryland English Shepherd Gathering. Lots of zooming around, chasing frizbees, and splashing into kiddie pools. The highlight of the gathering was discovering that the dog that Chandler immediately seemed to bond with was actually his brother Kirby-kind of an odd thing because Kirby is from the litter after Chandler, meaning they had never met before.

Chan & Kirby: