New Crate!

Secret FINALLY got a new crate Friday night. I felt bad for even putting her in the old one while I went out Friday night, but now I feel better knowing that she'll be more comfortable when I leave in the future. The pictures below show how cramped she was getting in the old crate!



Secret had a big day yesterday. We had to get up at 5 a.m. to drive to Shakopee for Kaiser's weight pull. Nobody wanted to get out of bed that early (including me!), but this was nice because it meant that everyone slept very nicely for the entire drive (not me, unfortunately...).

Fellow Border Collie nut, Greg (the person who talked me into getting Secret!), came to the weight pull to meet Secret for the first time. He hung out with Secret for a while, getting to know her (she did pretty well!) and then he brought in his 3 year old really friendly female, Peppy. Secret was interested in her, but also snarked a bit at her a couple of times -- Thankfully, Peppy is a *really* nice BC and took it all in stride.

When Kaiser was done pulling (he pulled 369 lbs!), we took the dogs outside for some play time. Greg also brought out his male, Neeko. The dogs all got along well, but Secret wasn't the most outgoing of the bunch and was not involved in much "playing." She was more interested in finding stuff to eat, although she did follow both Peppy & Neeko around quite a bit. We tried to get her to tug with Peppy, but she wasn't interested. They ran around a bit and everyone played nicely together, so I suppose what matters is that she got in some great socializing time.

All that play time also made for a nice drive home! All three dogs slept the entire trip home! It was a lot of driving time for one day and they all did very well.

The dogs got some play time when we got home, and later on I put the boys in the house and brought out the Chuck-It and a few tennis balls for Secret. She surprised me in that she was excited to chase the balls and I was even *more* surprised when she brought several of them back to me! Wow, is she learning to fetch? We'll have to do this more often!

I got some great advice from Greg regarding Secret's "agility training" -- I really do need to back off the anal handling skills I've been working on and go back to focusing on fun & fast. We're going to go back to setting up straight tunnels for now until she gets a bit more steady and confident on her feet.