ABBY IS A CANINE GOOD NEIGHBOUR...MOST OF THE TIME!

Abby's Canine Good Neighbour Certificate arrived last week.  As you may remember, we registered her to take this test in the Summer and to our surprise...she passed. Well, we weren't really surprised because she is such a good girl but we never really had much time to work with her before the test and were surprised at how much she had remembered from obedience training.  However, if one could have seen her last night, there was nothing "good neighbour(ish)" about her and you would have thought that she had never attended one single class of obedience!!  We were at the doggie park having a great time with all the other doggies until a golden retriever arrived who likes to run to the end/back of the park and lay in the mud puddles (after a rain there is a big wet/muddy spot at the Park). We have watched this dog do this several times and all the owners stand around talking about what a mess the dog gets into. We all sort of say "jees that owner is going to have to bath their dog tonight". He lays down right in the middle of a large mud puddle and rolls around!! Well, last night Miss Abby took a liking to this doggie and decided to chase him to the end of Park and run around him while he took his mud bath.  We of course called for her to "come" but apparently she had forgotten her name so we walked to the end of the park where the rolling and frolicking was taking place and she just kept running circles around us and both she and the golden ran around getting mud everywhere. Abby had wet mud all over her legs right up to and including her belly..her ears were even covered in mud.  After a couple of minutes of trying to get her attention we said "I bet all the owners are watching us saying what idiots we look like chasing our dog around in a circle of mud". We wanted to "reach out and touch her" if you know what I mean!!!! She was in such a mess that we had  to stay at the park extra long until she ran around to partially dry off.  The golden was escorted out of the park by his owner and headed to the river for a bath. We put her in the car and drove her home and had no option but to hose her down before allowing her in the house. All Summer long she has loved the hose but not last night for some reason! We also had to get a clean pail of water to wash the inside of the car because there was mud everywhere!  Abby keeps life interesting.  Until next time....