I’m still in the early stages of reading Cedar’s “personality.” It’s kind of complex. (I know. She’s a lab, so not that complex.) She’s patient. She sits in her pen, sometimes in her kennel, and watches me putter around the kitchen. When she whines (rarely) I either ignore it, console her briefly, or give a quick No (if accompanied by a jump up on the pen), and she’s back to watching me silently, or sleeping.

But…

She has a mind of her own. Lately she scoots out of the pen when I come in and out and one of the first things she does is bolts to my room to grab a sock. She then bolts to the futon on the living room floor (renovation upstairs) and has a chew fest. She also goes kind of nuts on brooms. That’s my fault because I started teasing her with a blue boat brush I’ve been calling the blue porcupine.

And she is still NOT a big fan of rain, which is either fortunate or unfortunate because we’re having a wicked October. Lots of rain and wind every day, it seems. And so we do our rounds, 8, 9, 10 times a day… Tentative steps out to the slippery deck, slow slinky down the two steps from the deck to soggy lawn. Over to the cedar rounds holding some ground cloth where a tree used to be…usually a pee there, sit on the cedar rounds almost long enough for the Cedar cliché pic I keep trying for.. then over to bite some salmonberry bushes…back over to the downspout to listen to the rain gushing from the roof…a stealthy stalk around the corner to bite the blue “porky” for a bit… then over to the bushes near the neighbor Holly’s place, usually to disappear long enough for a squat and a poo.

Then, often, a sprint back to the back door to head INSIDE and out of the driving wind and rain. Sometimes a chase of blowing alder leaves or a jump at a dangling salmonberry leaf teasing her from a just out of reach branch.

So many training quandaries to ponder… The astroturf I put in her pen each night works like a litter box, but how will I get her to stop using that? When to try the leash again (she was biting it incessantly), whether to stay away (as I have) from using treats to reinforce training. “Come” is coming along, along when Devil Dog is not making an appearance, and “Sit” is maybe 50-50…. Trying to set her up for success.

Twice yesterday Devil Dog turned to Angel Dog and melted in my arms and fell asleep. In those moments, I think my memory is just as short as hers.

Cedar learning to watch hockey.