Highs and Lows

It is not quite the end of November. Just a month has passed since my last post but much has happened. For the past five years Veronica and I have had the eventual life goal to move outside of Vancouver, to the Sunshine Coast. Much of the timing for this goal depended on our son, Cameron, moving out for University in Ottawa. When this happened two years ago we felt we had the freedom to make OUR move but it just didn’t happen. Cameron moved back home in January but, as luck should have it, everything for our move fell together in October. 

We found a lovely little house with a fenced yard in Gibsons, near the Marina.  We most definitely want to stay involved with West Coast Assistance Teams and with training Kenzie. Our general plan is to return to Vancouver regularly, staying overnight with family as needed, and hopefully to make it to every second class puppy class.

 

This move has given Kenzie lots of new opportunities for socializing and training. 

Because our house in Vancouver was a rental, we had many people coming to see it. We also sold and gave away a lot of stuff through craigslist. This meant a lot of people knocking at our door that Kenzie had never met before. Over a couple of weeks Kenzie got a lot of practice, and therefore got much better, at holding a down stay, waiting quietly, and then approaching (reasonably) calmly when she had been given permission. She still looks like she really wants to wiggle out of position but she can usually control herself, even if it is just barely.

One day she impressed me so much, I had to send a text message to Veronica and Sharon and Ryan right away to say that Kenzie is a rock star. If you aren't familiar with the Vancouver area, the Sunshine Coast is a 40 min. ferry ride from Horseshoe Bay. Usually we drive but it's much less expensive to walk on. Sometimes Veronica and I can't leave at the same time, so one of us walks on and the other takes the car.

For me, walking on entails arranging for ferry personnel to meet me with a wheelchair.  Whoever is pushing the wheelchair has to be very close to Kenzie and I. Kenzie had no trouble with this. The second difficulty was that walking on from the Gibson ferry terminal means you walk into the loud, smelly lowest deck of the boat. There is a very tiny elevator where Kenzie has to obey complicated commands to allow the wheelchair, the person pushing and Kenzie to all fit in. Kenzie was a rock star. She didn't shy at all for all the noise. And she obeyed everything exactly correctly to get in and out of the elevator. It doesn't seem like very much written here but she really was amazing.

As I sit here to write this she is on the couch beside, her head slid off my lap when she rolled onto her back, sticking all four legs in the air.   The work to get her to help my muscle pain by laying on me and to help my stress management with more cuddliness has definitely gone well.  She’s less stand-off-ish with me and kissier with everyone else.  Instead of retiring to the bedroom in the early evening, she stays with me until I tell her it’s time to go to bed.  It’s  as though she’s decided that since she no longer has to stay on the floor, it’s worth hangin’ for the evening.