Life on the Leash

Are the red chair pics getting boring? Because I could take them all day.

And I do:

Can you blame me?

Sumner wants to be a shop dog.

But he’s missing a few critical shop dog social skills, primarily the ability to not lose his shit when another dog walks in.

I bring him with me occasionally and he hangs out in the back room during the day. I’m impressed that he never reacts to the other dogs barking and squeaking just a few feet away from him. He’s a church mouse. Good boy!

I let him come out front once I lock the door for the day. He surveys the store (”A-ha. We have a few drops of Bichon pee over here. What’s this? Mastiff drool!”) and then settles on the demo bed while I finish up.

Sometimes pups come right up to the door and peek in as I’m doing my end-of-day paperwork, and Sum reminds me why he can’t be a shop dog:

No explosive displays, just a determined “I suggest you move along” look.

Still recovering from another nutty First Friday. We weren’t sure if the holiday weekend would keep people away … it didn’t. Town was jumpin’.

We had some special guests in the store on Friday night … cuties up for adoption from the Bull-Breed Rescue of Bucks County, and a few former adopt-ees who are now ambassadors.

Someone was feeling camera-shy:

They worked their doggie magic and drew crowds of admirers into the store. I heard rumors of a few serious adoption inquiries … fingers crossed, guys!

Sort of.

Those training clips I filmed back in April are up on Petside.com.

Here’s leash walking, teaching “stay”, an introduction to T-touch, and DIY games.

That long hair I’m sporting in the vids? Gone. It only looked fancy when I had James at the ready, so it was usually up in a ponytail or twist in my day-to-day life. I thought it was time to try something new.

Now, I’m cool with short hair (I rocked it for a few years), but this latest cut has left me in a soccer-Mom mid-length hair limbo that depresses me. Someone just came in to the store and didn’t even recognize me – she kept saying “You look so different.” Not “good” … “different.”

Oh, and it’s sort of red. Which is only slightly better than the goth brown it was last week.

So I’m feeling kinda yuck lately. Should I just do it and go short-short, like back in the “New Puppy! Now What?” days? Or should I wait out this poopy cut and go back to long? (Even though “long” on me only looks good when I have a hairdresser trailing me with a brush and hairspray.)