Iggy's tips for the day: Breathe thru what scares you & take time for belly rubs

Some of you may be aware of an invention called television and on television they show shows...

I have seen TV. We have one at our house. But here's a secret you may not know...people don't really live in that box on the wall. huh...well, I learn something new every day! literally...

One day back in February I learned that people from TV come with lots and lots of equipment. The people seemed nice, the equipment seemed, well, a little scary. I wasn't too sure about what was going on. But everything worked out OK.

That's another thing I have learned...when I am unsure about things...if I just keep breathing, I can get through it and I am just fine, in fact I am better because I get a little more brave with each new experience.

As we head into warmer weather, I just wanted to share a video of me Enjoying a sunny day!

Happy Birthday to Me!!

So I guess M-guy and M-gal said that I just had my Estimated Birthday on Tuesday! They said it was estimated because they don't really know when I was born. I could tell them, but I don't like to think about those days, so I'm gonna start fresh and have my Estimated Birthday be my Real Birthday from now on.

M-guy seemed a little preoccupied and busy with other stuff, but that's okay because he gave me extra treats and told me he'd make it up to me this weekend with a fun late birthday outing. Also, since it was my birthday and he couldn't take me anywhere special, he let me sleep in bed with him and M-gal! That rocked!! M-guy kept waking up sometimes because he didn't have sheets covering him the whole way. For some reason he wasn't able to move them, so since I was already up there on the sheets next to him, I made sure to curl up real close to him and not move to try and keep him warm, since the sheets obviously weren't doing the trick. If he were smart, he would totally keep me up in bed to do this more often. M-gal made me special home baked doggie treats shaped like bones too! M-guy slipped me an extra one while the other dogs weren't looking. Mmmmmm......yum..............

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This is Getting Difficult

A few weeks ago we started going to a new school in a different place where there are NO pit bulls. Wow, it's weird not to see other pit bulls at school! The class is for something called Rally-O. If I am good I can get more letters after my name, to go after the "CGC".

We started out doing normal class stuff like walking at heel, sitting, waiting, doing downs and walking around cones. After a while the lady in charge put up all these little pieces of paper and we had to read them to figure out the next command. My favorite is this one that says "fast", I am an expert at fast!


Then it started to get hard.

This sign is really tough. My mom and I got kind of mixed up with it, but the nice lady helped us figure it out and by the end of the class we got it almost completely right on the practice course. We practice in the evenings before dinner, which I like a lot. I love getting treats for being smart and then I get to be all wild and crazy and run around.



The lady in charge says I am a really great dog (duh!). She likes it when I get really happy and excited and bounce and crash into my mom's legs when we heel. This new class is really fun because I have to think a lot, and reading the signs is making me smarter. I also really like that since we've been taking rally classes my mom and I understand each other better. I've always listened to her, but now I can see that there are more things she's telling me, like which direction we're going to go. If I watch carefully I know what we're doing next before she even says anything! I'm going to keep studying hard, I want to know about more of the signs so we have more fun stuff to practice.


This is a good sit and look - more treats, please!

hugs,
Uba

Hey Everybody!

Springtime is sure niiiice, just like my friend Audie said. Now that it's warm, I like to hang out with my Man and Lady in the back yard. They're working on a part called The Roses, and my Lady got real unhappy because she said we have a go-for there. And the go-for is doing something funny to her plants! Uh oh! I didn't know what go-for was until I took a big sniff of a nice hole by her flowers. Then I remembered--- that guy! Well I sure went looking for him so he wouldn't eat any more plants. I looked all over in The Roses, I looked in the bulbs, I looked on the hill (three times!), in the grass, and by the deck. I'm not sure my Lady liked my looking. She said I made an awful lot of holes. But here's me when I was done digging, and nobody scolded me because they said I looked Too Happy. Yup. It's nice to be Too Happy in the sun!

Love,

Ernie