Coco's No Training Day 3

The weatherman threw us a curve ball. Last night the forecast was for potential rain but we were supposed to be on the trailing edge of the storm. Whatever. We have 4" of snow on the ground, the U.S. women's team is playing Mexico at Rio Tinto stadium about 5 miles from here in a blizzard, so Coco and I took the day off.

Instead, here are some pictures from my recent trip to St. George, to get us all in the spring mood.

Coco's Training, Day 2

Today we tried treats to motivate Coco to stay until released when I threw her toy. The last couple of times she really seemed to have the hang of it. Waiting until I said "go get it" before taking off. She is getting good about bringing the toy back instead of running around with it, but she has a hard time giving it up.

As I look at the agility training book, there is so much to do that I wonder if this is a realistic project. The actual training is only 10 minutes a day, but there are all the obstacles to build. Tomorrow we are supposed to have rain/snow so I wonder how our session will go.

Coco's Training, Day 1

Nearly three years ago, when Coco, the family dog for whom this blog is named, and her best friend, Starsky, were mere pups, Brad and I enrolled the two of them in a dog agility class. That's where the dogs run over an obstacle course, like the weave poles, the teeter-totter, the A-frame (up one side and down the other), the tunnel and various jumps. At the time, Coco was far too wild, though she demonstrated a lot of drive. Now I've decided to try training her. We've worked on "come", "sit", "stay" and "back", most of which she does pretty well. She loves to play fetch but she's more interested in tug-of-war when she brings whatever she fetches. But she's learning to give.

Today was the first day of her training. We worked on "stay" after I threw her toy. I can see it will take a while before she learns that command when there's something fun, like chasing a toy. Our first session was only 10 minutes, the recommended time, since dogs' brains are the size of a walnut and their attention span is short.

Be Grateful, Be Happy

This week I'm in St. George at the Utah Bar's Spring Convention. Our keynote speaker today was a psychologist who studies why people are happy. Lawyers need to be happy because we have twice the risk for drug and alcohol abuse and suicide as the general population. It's because we are trained to look for the worst-case scenario.

It seems there are ways to increase your happiness, and happy people are more resilient than those who are not. One way to be happy is to create exciting and pleasant memories. Another is to find a cause you believe in and donate your time or money. This is a case where money actually can buy happiness. But the best way to be happy is to be grateful. The speaker suggested writing a letter to someone to whom you are grateful for something. Instead of sending the letter, take it to the person and read it to them. Keep a gratitude diary. Write down what you are grateful for, why you are grateful and what you did (if anything) to foster that feeling of gratitude. Studies have shown that depressed people who do this are able to overcome their depression by this alone. It looks like the saying "develop an attitude of gratitude" was right all along.