Gone to the Dogs

Tomorrow is the first day of February and I can hardly believe January is already at an end.
It has been a terrific month. I have been mighty busy, wrangling of my furry beasts and having a blast doing so. "Bella Mia," is now nearing 7 months old and is one fiesty little chihuahua. We have two more basic obedience classes prior to her graduation from this level of training. It takes a lot of patience (something I can always use more of) working with dogs, but Bella certainly makes it fun. She is so eager to please and a happy little girl. So far we are doing very well with sits, down, stay (short periods of time), 'leave it' and we are working on heeling as well. She knows how to shake and position her little legs so she can receive belly rubs. I think she will be a great trick dog and maybe I will even take her to learn agility. Not that we need anymore competitive events in our lives! Zola is doing well, and learning some new things as well. At 2.5 years of age, she is accomplished in a lot of basic obedience and a fair amount of tricks, but isn't too food motivated. I guess that is one big difference between her and I!
In between working with the dogs, feeding the cats and multitudes of fish I've been getting into the training groove.

We definetely had a bit of a deep freeze, by California standards, this past month. Frankly, I couldn't have been happier. Dry roads and really no excuse to not ride. Cold is cold, but that is what good gear is for! I'll admit though, it was so cold on several occassions that I dug out some stuff that I had when I was a runner back in Boston and upstate New York. Save the lack of snow, it really felt like an average central NY winter on a number of mornings. Who knows what February will bring, but I am ready for it. I've gotten the best January of training in ever. I've got a long way to go, but I'm on a roll!