Heel is considered one of the basic dog commands. In a heel, your dog keeps your pace, close to your leg and attention straight ahead. Ebony is not good at the classic heel. Ebony’s main job to date has been to protect my left side.  I call her my fuzzy left bumper as she protects me from running into the things that I can’t see on my left side.  She is very skilled with helping me navigate with the shopping cart but she does that by walking about 1-2 feet ahead of me. She helps pull the cart and nudges it with her nose as needed to avoid obstacles.  Unfortunately, that is not heeling and I am working with her to pull/nudge with the cart but otherwise stay at my side while walking. 

Through a lot of snafus we missed the dog training Sunday and I was angry, sick and frustrated. When I got back home, my assistant came over and decided to try something new.  She worked with Ebony, my service dog, off-leash and Ebony did great. Without the distraction of the leash, Ebony stayed on her pace, keeping her eye on Eileen.  I have been practicing heel off leash with my service dog to do little things like taking out the garbage, getting something out of the car etc and she has been spot on.  But if I say “heel” with the leash on, she wants to be about a foot ahead. I think this is going to be another slow lesson in relearning, just like we had to relearn “in”.  For a long time “in” meant sit by the open car door and wait for someone to boost her in. That worked when she was 12 pounds but when she hit 50 pounds it was vital that “in” meant hop into the car and settle into her spot in the backseat. Unfortunately, that took about two months before she was consistently hopping in the car as soon as she heard “in”.  Hopefully “heel” won’t take as long (crosses fingers)!

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Well, I did it. With much trepidation, I took Ebony in for her first real haircut. The new tangle comb was great at removing the mats but unfortunately it did nothing to prevent them. It was taking me an hour a day to comb through her beautiful long wavy Goldendoodle hair.  It was so silky smooth and long that it easily matted.  I was nervous, because sorry Poodle lovers, but I have never really liked the way poodles looked. When they are all poufed and primped out they just looked too prissy to me.  I am not one of those spiffed and polished gals, think more of an earth momma so my shaggy companion suited my style.

When I first picked her up, I have to admit my heart sunk a bit. There was no denying that she was a poodle! It could have been much worse. I told the groomer to leave her beard  and not make any poofs on her and he paid attention to my requests. Unfortunately, she tended to matt up worst around her neck and her abdomen so those areas needed to be trimmed the closest. He did a good job blending in the really short neck hair into the longer hair on her face and chest. Well, I figured that this haircut would greatly cut down on the “what kind of dog is that?” question.  Too me, she looked all poodle. I was wrong, we hadn’t been in the grocery store five minutes when someone came up and asked me if she was a Bouvier Des Flandres.

Ebony isn’t looking all that happy with her new haircut either. There is no way that she was going to smile for these pictures! I, on, the other hand was quite pleased when I got a good look at her from the side and I saw some of that loveable goofy, albeit intelligent, shaggy dog. I just think we are more the au naturale kind of girls.

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