Since I haven’t posted in over a week, I wanted to start out with a few random thoughts of the day. First of all, I was looking at my all time top search phrase, and the number 1 top search phrase was ‘sexwoman’. 40 views were made from this phrase. The next top phrase was ‘gay marriage’ with 8 views. Wow… I didn’t know I sexualized my blog so much, but yay for me, I guess!

Secondly, I just passed 2,000 views on my blog. Again, yay me! I started my blog in February, and haven’t tried to boost my traffic at all. This is an informative blog that I have shared with my facebook account, and to gain support in my journey with my new business and my mental illness. I’m quite proud to say I think I have helped people realize what is going on in my head, and helped them understand a bit more about being bipolar.

Thirdly, I have a success story to share. Napoleon and I have been working on long-distance stays and distraction/impulse control training. We have implemented a lot more ‘rest time’ into his schedule, and done 30 minutes of vigorous training in one session, and then plenty of down time afterwards. I have noticed such a difference, that sometimes I think I have a whole new dog!

Over the Memorial Day weekend, Napoleon had an opportunity to train around A LOT of distractions. I had my family come over, and they normally love to give him attention. We practiced a long-distance down-stay while I was in the kitchen making lunch, as my 3year old niece was running around playing and screaming. We were also babysitting a puppy, and my dad had the puppy on a leash so she wouldn’t get away and run around the house. So, my dog had to down-stay while I was making food ( a HUGE challenge for him is impulse control around food), a loud child, a puppy, and having new people in the house.

What was our result?! SUCCESS!! He stayed in a down for about 15 minutes around all the distractions. I then broke his stay with a recall, and then put him closer to the distractions and tried again. The puppy got away from my dad and wanted to play with Napoleon. He got up after about 5 minutes of abuse from this mouthy poodle/pointer mix. Then, I put him back in a stay in the hallway for about 10 minutes and then kenneled him so he could learn everything we practiced. He did AWESOME! I was so proud! This was a huge milestone for him. Usually, when there are people around, food, and the excitement levels are high, he really struggles, and my anxiety levels sky rocket. When I’m anxious, it is not the time to train. He really helped me that day because he was completely awesome the entire time.