Mortie Goes to Puppy Kindergarten and a funny book

So after a long absence while in Vancouver, I attended puppy kindergarten with Mortie the genius Jackapoo. After the puppies all visit with each other,Merve, the instructor, has the owners and dogs demonstrate sit and come. Let' see there is a beagle,Simon, a doberman pinscher (forget his name) complete with bandages on his ear, a black poodle type dog, Maggie, and a caramel coloured poodle, Zoe.

Most of the dogs eventually came although they get distracted by the rows of dogfood on either side of them. Mortie and the doberman probably respond the best. The new trick we learned today was "Down". After the puppy gets to you, you stand up and save the treat in such a manner that he/she lies down. Then you give the pup the treat and say "Good down." (Such pigeon English)

Tall dogs have no problem with this command because they have to lie down to reach the treat. Short Mortie types can just reach down. In a moment when I thought no one was looking, I told Mortie to shake and he did. Merve then bet me Mortie wouldn't be able to lie down on command next week. If he did, I could have Merve's job.

The challenge was on. Never underestimate our Jackapoo. This afternoon he was bounding for me on "Come" and hurtling himself to his tummy on "Down". The funny thing is I'm not sure Mortie knows the difference between all the commands. When he sees a treat he just tries out all his tricks out on me. He looks intently "Look", sits, holds out his paw just in case I want to shake and then, if all else fails, slumps down.

Still by next week, I'm pretty sure Merve can hand me the reigns of his class. Afterall Mortie got the trick in a few minutes. After a whole week, I think I can teach him to wave to people from the car.

By the way I'm reading a funny book not available on the book stands 'till August.
It's called A is for Angst by Barara Haworth-Attard. It's almost like a Canadian version of the Snogging books except of course it's in Canadian. None of that off putting British slang. Well I'm sure it's not off putting to the Brits.

Alzheimers' ,a Donut Party, and Facing the End of a Book

After being away a couple of weeks I knew I wanted to visit my mom who suffers from Alzheimer's. I also was in charge of my six year old grandson Hunter so of course needed to combine the two. Then I added my puppy Mortie, bribing them all with a trip to the donut shop first. It was fun to watch Hunter agonize over his 12 choices especially when he had just one choice left--turned out to be another sprinkles donut.

We then visited my mom who was shouting at the people on the TV when we arrived. She said she liked them but they should put on a dress or pants. It was an AIDS/Africa special. Her talking level is only shouting now. She enjoyed selecting and eating her two donuts, one double chocolate and the other maple. Then we left for the splash pad at Lasalle Park. Nothing quite as fun as all those colourful showers and sprinkler systems. I waded through in my jeans trying to convince Hunter to try the ones I would have had I been wearing a swim suit.

Then I had to go home and face the end of my book Avalanche--also the end of the Wild Life Series. I feel I'm in the agaonizing position of the main character Zanna who needs to make a choice. Continue living with Dad in the beautiful Rockies where there seems to be nonstop lifethreatening disasters but where she'll also be with her twin brother Martin and loyal wolf/dog Paris and boyfriend forever, Tyler. Or move to Paris, France with her Mom who shipped her away in the first place over an argument about tatoos and a boy.

It seems simple here on a blog. Zanna and I are crying through this segment, we thought her parents might be together forever. Really they were only getting along well because they knew their time together was limited.

And so I wrote four pages and still didn't decide. Maybe tomorrow I can finally type The End.

Swimming and Face Book

So close to the end of Avalanche, the last book in my Wild Life series for Norway and Sweden. I'm actually writing the resolution and dealing with all the emotional wounds and arcs for all four books. Ahh! So when my daughter Jen invited me swimming, of course I said yes. Water helps the right brain.

I dressed baby William in his swim diapers and board shorts, a t-shirt and a hat and off we went to the pool. Three lengths or so and then William fell asleep. We headed back up to the condo where Jen gave me a facebook tutorial. She also made it so that my blog would automatically show up on the facebook. So what do I do about unknowns wainting to be my friend? What about identity theft? Maybe I should go back to finishing Avalanche.

Home from B.C.

Thinking over my Vancouver, BC vacation—my highlights have to be: staying with Norma Charles, fellow kids’ writer, and Brian Woods, her partner in life and kayak, we always had great chats; going to see a play called “Unhinged” on Granville Island. It was a very funny story about a bunch of women and how they raised their teens. Going to the hotsprings at Harrison. No one can be stressed in a huge pool of very warm water. Rollerblading in Stanley Park. I rested a lot while my husband Bob took amazing photographs. The park has so many interesting sights from totem poles to cruise liners, aquariums to horsedrawn wagons. I hope to post at least one later. And then coming home to family complete with two great grandsons, one six, (Hunter with two almost in adult teeth), the other four months, (William with two almost in baby teeth) and my cute well-trained Jackapoo puppy, Mortie. Of course it was nice seeing Jen, Robin, Craig and Adam too.