I had a lunch meeting with one of the managers from the San Luis Obispo Humane Society. I had decided to take all of the dogs with me because its always much cooler toward the coast in San Luis Obispo. It was going to be a scorcher today at an estimated 106F. When we left to head down to SLO, the weather was getting hot at around 90F. As I am driving down the hill toward SLO, I noticed that the weather was getting hotter instead of cooler. Wow, that is sure weird. Only once in a blue moon is the weather reversed like that. It is usually always hotter in north county than is SLO in the summer, and colder in the winter. San Luis Obispo is always milder that north county.

Well its just my luck! Its boiling down here in SLO and I have the dogs with me! I found some pretty good shade and made sure the dogs had water and open windows. I found out that it was 103F, so I went from 90 to 103F, it figures! I was early, so I looked around in a nearby store for a few minutes, then rechecked the dogs. Not happy with the shade, I moved the truck to a shadier location.

Steve (the Humane Society manager) and I met for lunch and discussed an up coming event that I am involved in. They sponsor a yearly dog walk and fair called the Wiggle Waggle Walk around the park. It is a fundraiser for that local organization. I am going to be doing sheepdog herding demonstrations.

We discussed the event during lunch then headed over to the park where it is going to be held in order to work out logistics. Their will be booths with vendors set up in the dog park located inside the Laguna Lake park. Steve and I needed to discuss where and how, I would be doing the demonstrations. Since we were at a dog park and the dogs were hot, I let them out to play. I kept a cautious eye on Decker as there were two other people at the dog park with their dogs, all having fun chasing the ball.

I had all of the dogs leashed, then once "inside" the dog park (no real fences), I unleashed them. Decker and the girls had a wonderful time running and playing, and chasing the ball. One lady walked by and I simply told her to ignore the Aussie. That made me fell better as Decker had been coming right up to her as he was playing with her dogs. He really like her dogs too, and seemed drawn to them.

After discussing the event on October 23rd, it was still fairly early in the day. I decided to take the dogs to the beach, since I was almost half way there. The beach was beautiful. The temperature was about 75 or 80 degrees and not much wind. The tide was in, and people and dogs were everywhere along the beach, enjoying each other and the water.

The dogs were leashed and remained so until I reached about 50 feet from the water. Then off with the leashes, and time to run. The girls took off and Decker followed. They ran up and down the surf, chasing birds or balls, what ever came their way. They even played a little with other dogs, but not too much as they have a priority of running! I walked up and back down along the surf, checking to see what was up a head. I was looking for joggers. I had been warned that Decker might go after joggers. Being a herding dog, I don't doubt that. There were no joggers at all, just lots of dogs, balls, people and water.

When the dogs got a little too far from me, I used my sheepdog herding whistle with the "that'll do" command on it, and they would tear back to me. Decker doesn't know what the recall whistle is, so he would follow the girls back to me. More and more I would whistle, then use a verbal command, so he would understand what I want.

As we were ending the beach excursion, Decker was getting it. He was coming back to me better and better. I was pleased with his progress. I think that he is coming around just fine. I am now considering starting to look to place him, but I will be picky as to what kind of home he goes to. I have a lot of me inside him, and I don't want him to revert back to how he used to be. I also think that he needs another active dog in his pack to play with. Being only a year and a half, he still has puppy in him.