From one extreme to the other

This afternoon Vespa and I went and did our bit for the local community.

Friends of Kelso Museum (which is now sadly defunct) were putting on an exhibition about WW1 and how it affected Kelso and I had volunteered our services to sit at the desk and help out. It was a fascinating blend of photos, descriptions and memorabilia and I'm so pleased I went.

I found out all kinds of interesting facts, such as slugs were used to detect gas and poppies started in America first and then were taken up in France before travelling over La Manche. So many interesting things to read and I think I'll have to go back to get another glimpse of it all as I was working and didn't have time to see everything.

Vespa was fantastically well behaved and just lay there doing his job with minimal fuss. I was super proud, which was a little different to this morning when I put my head in my hands with despair when he ran off after another dog on our walk in the woods and wouldn't come back. In the end I had to go and get him, but he was having such a great time and the woman walking her yellow lab with her 6 week old baby strapped to her chest was very welcoming, so we decided to walk back together and let the dogs play. This was actually a good strategy because her dog is usually quite scared of other dogs, but was having a great time leaping about with Vespa, and I wanted to exhaust Vespa so he'd be well behaved this afternoon.

Being at the exhibition proved that the strategy worked, though I'm now going to have to spend some time working on his recall. But I suppose the thing is he's just a pup and he just wanted to be off doing puppy things and not being a well behaved Guide Dog puppy. And the compliments we got this afternoon when everyone was saying what an incredibly well behaved dog he was did make up for it.

Swings and roundabouts. I do wish they didn't swing quite so much nor go round so quickly though!