A bit About Lucky & Me!

The Boy the day we found him in the bush!

Well! Welcome! Where to start? I feel like I am on one of those horrendous work training courses when the instructor says, "I want you to tell us your name and a little bit about yourself" and you think, "heck, what on earth am I going to say?" Ok, so my name is Rona. I live out in the boonies and I have a wonderful rescue dog, Lucky, who is five years old. After moving from town to a more remote area with less access to a variety of opportunities for social interaction, walking routes etc. I was concerned that Lucky might get bored, forget how to behave when he did meet other dogs and so on. Apparently there's even a term for this ... Rural dog Syndrome!!

Just last week I stumbled across a link on Facebook to a fabulous online dog training duo, Lauren Langman and Tom Mitchell of Absolute Dogs, aD Training Academy. After my usual episode of, 'shall I, shan't I?' which lasted about three days I finally signed up for the course! During the first few days several things happened. First of all, apart from all the fun and excitement when it seemed Lucky actually liked doing it, I was starting to really think about what made him tick and more importantly, what I was doing and how I responded to him. I started to have so many light bulb moments it was crazy!

Along with the course came the opportunity to join the Facebook Page, where I found people having similar issues to resolve, similar feelings of inadequacy and, of course, successes that they wanted to share. The were also those who, like me, had some reservations with certain aspects like Ditching the Bowl. Before long I was spending more time on Facebook than implementing the ideas or getting anything else done ... for some reason hubby doesn't like the idea of ditching his bowl or coming home to unmade beds and stuff everywhere! Go figure! Sometimes I would be out walking (where I do a lot of my thinking) and I would have a light bulb moment and realise I could maybe answer another member's post but couldn't remember who that was or find the post! Worse still I was in fear of becoming one of those people who had something to say about every single post and monopolizing the group page.

So, in order to try and have some control over myself (indulge my need to share everything without becoming that annoying serial commenting person) and to make myself accountable and sticking to the course I decided to start this blog. It will be a journal of our successes and failures ... a warts 'n' all account of us on our new journey and we would love it if you checked in from time to time to see how we are doing, and we would love it even more if you have the time to chat with us in the comments section!