John and Julie for Dinner

I did more of the No Stinking Leashes game today and lost Tom halfway through. As in he went into evading me mode. I went back inside for about fifteen minutes. Came back out and he was sitting on the step. CT and got him working with me again. He was much more receptive and wanting to work with me. I didn't do the leash part on/off as much because in the beginning I didn't want it to be a you come to me and leash goes on. And then I had him off leash and didn't feel I needed the leash. Turns are good for keeping him with me. He was staying with me well. Lesson learned: Give Tom 10-15 minutes to sniff around, perhaps while I'm setting up the few agility obstacles. Then he's checked out everything he wants to and is much more interested in me. Good to keep in mind.

Set up the agility course with a switch/rear cross in it and then realized afterwards that it's necessary to have the jump after the jump you switched on for it to work. So at least three jumps are required. Oops.

Worked more on a variety of tricks.

It was great to have John and Julie over. Tom gave John kisses when he was sitting down which is quite rare. Tom was behaving a bit strangely at that point. He was more excited and making his "I want something" noises. Thinking he wanted to play which we did some of them and then he got a bit too revved up and I had him sit until he calmed down. But overall he was cool with John and quite liked Julie's treats, of course.