Canine training: Week 4

[spacealien_vamp]

For the amusement of the Northerners, I thought I should begin by mentioning that the big event of this past week was the severe winter weather. Yes, snow fell on Thursday. As you can see from the picture, it didn't accumulate on the blacktop, but it resulted in school closings in at least six counties, plus 2 hour delays in many more.

Training has continued to become more involved. This week we added complications such as baggage carts, which requires a bit of fancy footwork to block the wheels from rolling.

On Friday, we had a field trip with our dogs to the Atlanta airport. We walked them around to become acclimated. Luckily, Benny seemed to love it. He was curious about all the carousels, carts, and people, and he wasn't afraid of things like loud noises or baby strollers. The plan is to make more trips to the airport until the dogs are ready to practice actually working there.

Last weekend I tried out the hotel's swimming pool. The water wasn't bad, but the pool itself is only 5 feet at the deep end, so I could still touch the bottom if I pointed my toes. That kind of takes the fun out of swimming. Also, there's no television or radio or anything in the room, so it got pretty boring in there by myself after a few minutes.

This weekend, the weather has been very nice. Today I took advantage of that to walk to the nearest bookstore, about a mile and a half away. I'll tell you what, after living in California for two years, I don't recall anyone ever honking at me as I walked down the sidewalk. On my way to the bookstore, though, I was honked at twice by guys in pickup trucks. Whether that says something about California or about Georgia...I'll leave that up to you to judge.

Comments

[cybertardis.livejournal.com]

That honking thing must be an east coast thing--guys used to do it all the time in the Bronx.

[collarnojutsu.livejournal.com]

We got the same snow - I got a little giddy waking up to the various delayed opening announcements on the radio, but upon opening the curtain found myself very disappointed indeed! It seems like we have had some snow event in Feb for the last many years and I'm sad to think that one was it. (Though maybe not as sad when I think about having had my windows open all weekend, yeah?)

Sounds like you're having fun with the doggies. :)

PS: Honking isn't as much about locale as it is about class. *eyeroll*

[wednesday-10-00.livejournal.com]

it didn't accumulate on the blacktop, but it resulted in school closings in at least six counties, plus 2 hour delays in many more.

This never stops being amazing to me.

which requires a bit of fancy footwork to block the wheels from rolling.

Don't most baggage carts have wheels that lock unless you press down on the handle? (All the ones I've ever used have been like that.)

[spacealien-vamp.livejournal.com]

Don't most baggage carts have wheels that lock unless you press down on the handle?

These don't. They're rather like shopping carts.

The ones at the San Francisco airport don't, either. They have an extra lever that locks the wheels, though most people don't notice the lever. But our baggage claim area is carpeted, so the carts don't roll on their own very much.

[wednesday-10-00.livejournal.com]

Interesting! I guess when I think about it, I've only used baggage carts in...five? airports. (No, wait, six, but I can't remember what the carts were like in Seoul. Just that having one was keeping me from going to the bathroom.) Not really a big enough sample size to make assumptions about all of them.