Alpha

This morning Stitch and I had an appointment with a hairdresser, now Stitch obviously came along for the ride whereas I was getting trimmed and tousled into a look that I was hoping would give the impression of supermodel meets Betty Boo.  I was washed and my head massaged (the only reason I go) and then Mr Headhoncho who's name I cannot recall preceded to cut my hair, telling me how he had trained in London and Paris and that he had trained at Vidal Sassoon, I think he thought I would have been more impressed but I had to inform him my last Israeli hairdresser had also trained in London and in Paris with Vidal Sassoon and the techniques he was using were not new to me, he was unperturbed and the result was a head of curls that resembled a starlet in the making, or was it a tartlet, I always get those words muddled.

I left the hairdressers with my newest product guaranteed to give me frizzless curls for life! and before heading home I added a couple more squirts of the new product to my hair just for good measure, I would have left it had the original gentleman finished my hair off, but the salon girl tousled me after she re-washed my hair to get rid of the snipped pieces and then teased my hair into place, I never have believed less is more where hair products are concerned and today was no exception, I have seen the result of less is more on a windswept day and it's not pretty.

Stitch and I had a walk whilst we waited for our guest to arrive, we were having a visit from Lindsay the Dog Whisperer and I was quite excited to say the least, my anniversary present from my beloved was a consultation with Lindsay from K9 Paphos and I was hoping to get the little irritations in Stitches behaviour into order, I was not disappointed.  When Lindsay arrived after collecting her from the Stadium as no one can ever find our house we sat and chatted about the things that I needed help with, the jumping, the loose lead walking and mouthing which became apparent today as I had a dress on which Stitch liked to mouth at. Lindsay told me how to stop this behaviour but not before she herself had to intervene as Stitch was becoming more child like the longer the conversation went on, as Stitch mouthed Lindsay banged the sofa and Stitch jumped back and looked as if to say OK then I won't do that again that dress is noisy.... Lindsay thinks some of Stitch's behaviours come from him being quite young and although gentle the mouthing comes from puppy behaviour that definitely needs addressing. We did a tick list of things that come up on a day to day basis, and Stitch scored 8/17 which is pretty damned good, I thought. So we set about the ground rules and going over behaviours that would make me the ALPHA and not Stitch, things like going out the door first and leading the walk not being lead.

When Lindsay left I decided to try Stitch on his first walk and using the techniques I had been given I had the greatest walk with Stitch and felt quite pleased with myself, in the house I continued with the techniques and when we were eating our supper just one look and point with Stitch and he sat back on his mat and didn't sniff around under the table HOORAY!!!!

The subsequent walks all went the same way, lead on with a sit, second out the door for Stitch, and no sniffing at everything that looked interesting, all in all today has been a successful day, the curls have held, the dog has adjusted to training and all I have to do now is train my beloved........