Outdoor whistle training

After spending most of yesterday lying on the sofa with a very sore big toe, today Ann woke up and felt absolutely fine. Her toe didn't hurt at all, but OMG you should see what it looks like. It's swollen to about twice it's size and the bruising is a very deep purple. 


Anyway, because she was working this afternoon, we went out for a big, long, walk this morning. Ann's trying to 'whistle train' me. The idea being if I ever run after deer again, I'll respond to a whistle because yelling, 'Trixie come' for a whole hour obviously had no effect whatsoever?!!


Ann's not really quite sure how she should go about whistle training me so we're taking it really slowly. Up till now, we've just practised in the house. Sometimes Ann goes into another room and blows the whistle and I have to stop what I'm doing and go to her straight away. Sometimes when I woof at animals on TV I have to stop woofing and go straight to Ann. I've managed that really well, but lets face it; there's not exactly a lot of distractions in the house is there?


Today Ann said that we would start some outdoor whistle training so we went to the lower part of Braid Hills where I usually do loads of running and rolling around on my back. Every time Ann blew the whistle I had to come racing back to her. I responded perfectly every single time, but there weren't any distractions. BUT, that is fine because Ann wants to reinforce that coming back to her is the bestest thing in the world to do, even if I'm chasing. Not only did I get loads of praise and tickles behind my ears, I also got treats. Yay! We're going to practise a bit more where there are no distractions and then we're going to move on to practising when I'm chasing squirrels. Mmmmmmm............... that's probably going to be a bit more challenging?!


When we'd walked the full length of the Braid Hills and were just about to walk back through the Hermitage, guess what I found?.................... A manky old ball. Yay!
Ann is such a lovely owner. She said, 'Trixie, you've done enough whistle training for one day. You can just enjoy that manky old ball and do your own thing on the route home.'  So that is what I did.


I now have 12 manky old balls in my manky old balls box. Yay!