Celeste's new jewelry

Celeste has been playing with wearing a choke chain these last few days. She seems to like wearing a shiny, jingly necklace, even if it is a little too big for her (a true girly girl). We've been walking around the living room with it, learning the implications of wearing the shiny necklace, but going out on the bike path with her harness. But today, we took our first walk with the chain on. She did great, and with a completely different attitude. What prompted this move to the choker is Celeste's urge to pull. And pull she does. Of course she does - she was bred to pull. She's meant to be a sled dog. But I'm no sled. When we go out on the bike path, we don't fool around. We get out there and move. We go fast, even when walking. But no matter how long or fast we go, Celeste has a need to pull me along and I don't like it. I have the feeling that when she's an adult, she'll be dragging me all over the place and jerking me off my feet, if I don't do something about it now.

Wearing her chain, Celeste does not pull. Yeay! She wants too, I can feel her lean into the chain, but I can also feel her back off when I give it a small jerk with my fingers. I don't think we're ready to move into obedience training yet, but if we're going to exercise, it has to be pleasant for both of us.

Coming back from the bike path, we got a police escort. The canine unit was crossing the street at the same time we were, and they stopped to check out Celeste. Their were 4 policemen and two German Shepherd dogs, all very nice, very well-mannered. They invited us to go watch them work at the canine unit's training park, which is just across the street from us. One of them asked if Celeste was a Siberian mix. I think she is all Siberian, but I can't be sure. She's a street baby, probably the product of an indiscriminant backyard breeder, but she sure looks Siberian to me. I guess we'll see how she turns out in the months to come. Adult Siberian females should grow to between 20 and 22 inches at the shoulder. Celeste is 17 inches at four and a half months. I wonder if she'll make it to 20 inches. I wonder if she'll get that fabulous coat that I see one other Siberians. It's winter here, and she's shedding. Maybe when this baby hair is gone, the adult coat will come in gloriously.

I am glad that I had Celeste with me, and also glad that the police were closeby today. We had stopped at a busy intersection, waiting to go across to the bank, and I looked down to check Celeste. ALL of her hair was standing on end from nose to tail and she was staring past me. On the other side of me was a HUGE SCARY man; what was so scary about him was his facial expression. His eyes were bugging out of his head and his mouth was open, as if he were about to scream. As I looked at him, Celeste stood there, frozen, and then two policemen stepped up to talk to him. We took our cue and crossed the street. When we were safely across, I looked back and both police and the man were gone. I'm not sure what was going on with the strange man, but judging from Celeste's reaction to him, it was best that we left the area.