My Amaryllis bloomed today. My friend gave it to me as one of my Christmas presents. I have waited and waited. Today was the day. It has two breathtakingly huge blooms on it. The other bloom is directly behind this one. I love the dramatic variation of the red and white. It really brightens up my kitchen.
I met all of my January deadlines. I had a facial tick this morning, but my 1099s are out, taxes are paid and I have closed out everything I needed to close. Thank goodness. Now I just have to get my area of responsibility ready for the next few weeks for me to go on vacation.
Today was awesome. An expert animal behaviorist came in to work with us and our dogs today. With our move recently a few bad habits have developed, so a professional was brought in to work with us on any areas that we felt the need to work on. It is really easy to get frustrated with a dog who is not doing what we need them to do. In turn, the dog gets frustrated too. The behaviorist reinforced that you have to be consistent, particularly with the commands we use. Liesl and I have a couple of areas where we can improve. One is if she hears knocking or a doorbell, even if it is on TV. She immediately will go into a state where she can not even hear me telling her to stop barking. The behaviorist said that I need to start with high value treats, something she really wants. Then I should just start randomly knocking around the house. Before Liesl can get into a state of arousal, I should give her the treat while I knock. Ultimately, she will learn to associate knocking with something good happening. Liesl learned it pretty quickly. Now I just have to practice with her a bit. She looks so proud of herself. Here I had been getting louder trying to get her to hear me, and thinking of ways to distract her. I am glad to know that the answer is so easy. (Most animal shelters and large pet supply stores have animal behaviorist on staff and can be really helpful!)
I am off to tuck my little fuzzy headed girl in.
1 comment:
I used to have a amaryllis and I loved it. Hope all works out well with your little dog training. blessings,Kathleen
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