Greetings from Maple Ridge. We’re enjoying a beautiful indian summer this week. Glorious dog walking weather. Our walk today was supposed to be a standard one hour but somehow grew to be around two and a half hours. It was one of those days when every side street just had to be explored and, since we had nothing else to distract us, that’s just what we did.

We started our walk by going to thelocal cemetery, one of our favorite spots. It’s quiet and isn’t used very much. We’ve only run into one funeral in the last two months.Once in a while we’ll come across someone visiting a grave, but mostly its just us and the groundskeepers.

The best thing about the cemetery is that it provides a large, securely fenced area where Willow can runoff-leash. I’m very careful to avoid walking on the graves, but Willow goes where she wants. At first, I was afraid people would think it was disrespectful, but nobody seems to mind a West Highland Terrier running around there. The groundskeepers seem to like it and visitors seem to be amused and diverted when a little white dog stops in for a visit. Certainly, the people buried there have never complained.

Part of the reason we’re welcome there is that a West Highland White is such a cute little dog that it just lifts everybody’s spirits. The other part of the equation is doubtless that we are very good cemetery citizens. She never gets to dig or wreak any other kind of havoc that might get us in trouble,and I always have a couple of poop bags in my back pocket should they be needed.

Besides being large and fenced, there is one other thing that makes the cemetery good for off-leash work,and that is that there are lots of big trees. Its very important that a dog that is running loose always keep track of the handler, so the proper thing to do is pay attention to what the dog is up to, and whenever it seems to be getting to deeply involved in what it is doing just pop behind a tree and hide. Actually, if there are no trees handy you can usually get the same effect just by lying down.The dog will typically get into a tizzy and spend a lot of energy searching for you. After a couple of repetitions you’ll notice that the dog spends a lot of time looking over its shoulder keeping track of you and won’t let you get too far away. Dogs hate to lose their people.

If you’re lucky enough to have someone else walking with you this can be used as the start of tracking training. West Highland Terriers have a very good nose and they love to use it, so make a game of hide and seek out of out. One persontakes the dog away for awhile and the other person hides. Then bring the dog back to where it can pick up the scent and tell it to search.Once it gets the idea and starts using its nose that little Westie will probably turn into a tracking fool. Try this out, its a lot of fun.

On another note, Willow underwent her first professional grooming the other day. Marilyn had done a bit of clipping, trying to copy a picture of what a West Highland Terrier is supposed to look like and we were interested to see what a pro would do. Turns out that she was pretty close, in fact the main difference was just caused by hesitation and lack of confidence on her part.That meant that some lines weren’t as crisp and well defined as they could have been. Apart from that she did good. We don’t intend to go crazy with this. We probably won’t take her back to the groomers until after Christmas. Hmmm, I wonder what it will be like to look for a West Highland White in the snow?

The last bit of news I have to sharetoday is that Marilyn got me a present on Ebay and it arrived Tuesday. She found a listing for six foot cotton training leashes and picked up two of them. Including postage she paid nine dollars for the two of them.

After working with them for a few days I just can’t recommend them enough. They’re very soft on the hands and they aren’t stiff like a lot of synthetic leashes are. If you wear them around your waist as I often do they stay tight and don’t fall off when the dog is behaving itself and the leash is slack. If you need to modify the leash in any way you can sew the material with an ordinary sewing machine. Honestly, folks, you owe it to yourself to get one of these leashes. Best doggy present I ever received.