Coughing and training

Elbereth was coughing enough on Friday evening that we decided to take her to the wet on Saturday morning. She would cough and vomit water all over the house. The vet examined her - she seemed fine to us except for the coughing - and said it probably was a virus. No medicine - just let her take it a little bit easy and keep an eye out for worsening symptoms. So, we stopped using her collar when walking her, we put on her harness instead, and took only a short stroll in the woods yesterday and a slightly longer one today. She seems to be coughing much less already, and we are confident she will be fine.

We are taking three private lessons with a dog trainer with emphasis on clicker training and tracking. The clicker training is fun. The first week we worked on teaching Elbereth to bite and paw at a cardboard box. :-) Now we work on getting her to offer the same behavior several times in a row. Last Friday we also learned how to teach her to follow a manmade trail on a lawn. We will be having our last lesson next Saturday and learn how to lay out a trail in the woods. Looking forward to it - I'm sure tracking is an activity both Elbereth and we will enjoy.

Our hike today took us to a sand quarry.

Elbereth was intriged by the gravel rolling down the slope.