Last weekend was spent socialising with a group of lovely boaters who had come out of Chirk Marina for an extended weekend jaunt and we made a valiant effort to drink the Poachers Pocket dry. This was followed by a leisurely couple of days cruising back down New Marton locks to fill up with water and a half mile walk down Frankton locks to the refuse skip to dump the rubbish.
We arrived back at the Poachers Pocket this morning, closely followed by Charles and Dolores on "Felonious Mongoose" who we last met when they moored in Macclesfield Marina for a short while a couple of years ago. They invited us on board for a coffee and we had a good chat, catching up and sharing experiences.
Chico's still having his training sessions with Karen of Beastly Thoughts and it finally looks like we're making progress. Walks are much less stressful although I think it'll be a long time (if ever) till he 's cured and can happily socialise with other dogs. While we were out walking this morning, we met a man with 4 dogs who took great pains to tell me that he was a dog trainer and I was doing it all wrong! According to him I shouldn't use praise and treats but should yank him hard by the collar every time he barks at another dog and use other aversion/punishment methods. I think I'll stick with Karen's methods thank you!
The weather this week has been absolutely glorious and I've started planting up the troughs on the roof. So far I've filled 2 with violas and have tomatoes, courgettes and strawberries hardening off ready for planting on in a couple of weeks. The local mallards are very tame as they're regularly fed by people eating in the pub garden. This one sat on the roof for ages watching me doing the planting. I just hope it doesn't fancy tender young plants along with its pub diet of crisps and chips.
One of our expensive SMD (LED) lamps has failed after only 12 months (should last around 30,000 hours) and when Roger took it down to check he found out it was the capacitor that's failed. You may recall that we had problems with failing capacitors in the TV back in January so he ordered the right size replacement and again has effected a repair. The only draw-back is that the minimum order of these particular capacitors is 100 at a time but at under £3 including delivery and VAT it's not such a hardship.
If anyone needs any SMD's repairing we've got plenty of capacitors going spare, just get in touch.
As it's been such a leisurely week I've been doing quite a lot of crochet, working on my blanket and also making this Happy Flower wall hanging. It's another of Lucy's creations and the instructions are available here.
1 comment:
Stick to training with kindness Yvonne.
Our daughter, Elanor, adopted a very difficult Doberman cross Greyhound eighteen months ago. The dog, Sally, was frightened of everything and responded by barking. Elanor has always rewarded her for not barking and now if a bicycle goes past Sally nudges Elanor as if to say "Look Mummy a bicycle and I'm not barking, where's my treat?"
Sally is now regularly turned loose with the other dogs for a play before her agility class and socialises really well.
Training with rewards works.
Sheila
Sanity Again
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