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I'm really happy with how Tibby's training is going right now.  Any one who has read this blog will know it hasn't always been that way.  I feel like we are actually communicating now and Tibby has a lot more drive.  She still has (and always will have) her own ideas about everything, but she is willing to listen to my ideas too, if I explain them to her.  Maybe it is that I have learned how to communicate with her.  She needs everything explained to her.  She isn't going to do it, because I tell her to.  She is a thinker.  If I give her time to think things through, she usually decides that my way is the best.  I have the treats and toys, after all!  We did some distance obstacle discrimination today and she was perfect.   

Speaking of drive, I have noticed in the last week a BIG uptick in energy from Tibby.  She used to sleep most of the day and grudgingly do a little play/work if she had to.  Now she is active (playing/digging holes/sniffing the grass/chasing the cat/chewing bully sticks/hiding bones in the yard/working) almost ALL the time.  I only worked one day this week, so I was with her for 3 days all day long and I could see a big difference in her activity.  In the past, when I have been at home, she would sleep almost the entire day.  It makes me wonder if she was fighting off an infection or something.  Maybe it's the weather changing?  She is acting like she did back in the Spring - run, run, run all day.  I thought she had calmed down, because she is older, but maybe it was something else.  Perhaps related to her heart murmur?  They didn't hear the murmur at her appointment in April, but they heard it at her appointment in August.  She has another appointment in November, maybe it will be gone?