Illustrated Epistle: 😷 Is it Safe to be Let Off the Leash? 🐶

New Zealand is entering the traffic light system this weekend, which means more freedom to do things. If you're vaccinated.

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We are waiting this week for more details of the new COVID traffic light system which comes into effect on December 3. It will mean less lockdowns and less restriction of movement.

People who are doubly vaccinated will be let off the leash, particularly in Auckland, where they have been in lockdown for over 100 days. Travel out of Auckland is is kicking off from the 15th of December. My sister has booked a flight to see us in Christchurch a week later. Hopefully by then they will have ironed out the kinks.

Not being let off the leash as much is Molly. She has been a very bad girl, attacking other dogs for no reason. Only a few, but randomly, nice dogs, and luckily dogs that belong to people we know. It's upsetting and embarrassing (she hasn't drawn blood, but she has come away with mouthfuls of fur on two occasions. Not a good look.).

A dog trainer came out to the house on Thursday. Although she gave me some general training tools that I will put into practice, she couldn't explain why it was happening. Only to continue to work on training her to not only to obey our commands, but make her own good choices! I'm not sure how this is going to work…

Molly loved the trainer and would have followed her out the gate given half a chance. I've put it down to her having superior, different treats (possum meat was a big hit), but she is in high demand so she must have some happy clients (not just the dogs). Molly and I will persevere with trying to follow the worksheets, as cartoonists don't get paid as much as dog trainers ($260 for two hours. Including treats...).

Back to the drawing board (I'm trying to get ahead so I can have a Christmas break with my sister).

Ta ta for now.

PS. Coming to the end of the NaNoWriMo writing month and I have written but not as much as I wanted. Now that I'm back into it, I’m just gonna keep going till I finish this thing. I’m at 45,000 words and it needs to be closer to 60,000. I think part of the problem is that I write very concisely. Years of copy-editing for a comic strip doesn’t help. The less words in it, the better and. Every word has to count.

PPS. If you think someone else might find this interesting, please pass it on.

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