Hum, I wonder why this garden is roped off.....?

Spring is finally here! With 13C temperatures this weekend, the Spring clean-up began. Miss Abby has been travelling into all of the flower beds and causing a bit of a problem. We had started a new flower bed in the late summer and some of the plants were not well rooted....well needless to say we have replanted a heuchera plant twice this week! In her defence, she arrived when all the flower gardens were covered with snow so she did not have the chance to learn that some of the areas were off limits. She loved playing outside this weekend with the rakes and the leaf bags and she would grab the work gloves and run around the yard as if to say "catch me if you can". She pulled on the little sticks that poked out of the side of the leaf bag and walked backwards until she successfully riped it from the bag. We chuckled at her playfulness because we have been used to our "mature" dogs helping with the yard work for many years which involved them wondering around the bags, never wanting to bite the rake or take off with work gloves! Abby on the other hand, keeps things interesting.
Our first night of obedience class went well last Thursday night. Abby was the only mutt in the class but she held her own within the purebred grouping. She made her parents proud! There was a Pointer, three Labrador Retrievers (one black 5 months and one chocolate 2 years and a yellow), a Rottweiler, an English Setter, and a Boston Terrier. She already knew most of the commands presented at class so she did very well. We covered the Sit, Down, Stand and Come commands and were sent home with home work this week so we have been reinforcing these very important commands. Abby is very motivated by food so training appears to be quite easy (so far).
Now that the warmer weather is here, we can leave the door open to the enclosed sunporch and Abby loves to sit on the bench and watch the cars, people, kids and other doggies walk by, as well as keeping a watchful eye on the neighbourhood cats. She really is very social....she just sits and watches, but never barks.
She loves putting her head out the car window and letting her ears flop in the wind. We watch her from the side mirror and her little eyes are closed, her nose in the air loving every minute. From the beginning she has loved going for drives in the car and she knows the question "Do you want to go in the car?". When she hears this, she makes a bee line for the front door and waits.
This week we started to leave her out of her kennel (test) when we are not at home for brief periods of time. She passed the test! We confined her to the family, dining room and kitchen, picked up anything that could be of "great interest", and left her alone. When we arrived home she was sleeping on her bed in the dining room with not one thing out of place. We will work on longer periods of time over the Spring with the hopes that she will have full run of the house once we know she can be trusted.
She continues to be a bundle of joy in a little beige body! Until next time...