Collared!...

Chili is wearing the collar. She has a bad scrape on the inside of her left rear leg and she was licking it. After obedience class today, we stopped in at the HSMO vet and got her fitted for an "Elizabethan Collar" as they call it politely. It will be on her for the next 7 days as I treat the scrape with Neosporin ointment.

We did start obedience at HSMO this morning. Their classes are run by the Greater St. Louis Training Club. There are 3 other dogs in the beginners' class with Chili. She was predictably excited and distracted but she handled herself well overall. I have a list of basic concepts to work on with her so we can test out to the next level. I don't know how successful we will be with the collar on her but I'll work as hard as she will.

Completely unrelated: my home-improvements aren't quite done. The other day Chili and I were out in my backyard and my retired neighbor waved me toward the fence. He pointed at the branches of one of my oak trees. "These branches, on my roof, it's no good!" (He's of eastern European background.) The problem is my oak trees are mature and massive. Their branches are far-reaching, and do droop onto my neighbor's roof. In the interest of being a good neighbor, I called a tree service and got an estimate post-haste. The arborist looked at them and estimated trimming them and removing a dying maple that's planted in an odd place anyway. Looks like that'll be happening in the near future.