Knowing where to stick your nose

 

 

My dog is a puppy, but a year old. Full of energy and inquisitive about everything.

 

When he first started walking with me he had to try and smell everything.

Here on the edge of the desert in Arizona each home is appropriately individually marked with appropriate front yards, each unique. And many of them have cactuses of different types.

 

Scout had to learn the hard  way not to smell them. Finding those stickers were sharp, and received a few shocks with attendant yelps.

 

 But as all young he learned, and stopped trying to smell those sharp things.

 Today when walking with me, he carefully approached a few of them. The cactus flowers are in bloom and there are different things to smell, but very carefully.

 In my own training I had many lessons where I felt the sting of my instructor or partner. Without doubt ‘the whip that instructs’ works.