We had a couple more outings. Today’s was definitely more brains falling out, but even so, not bad. They can’t all be perfect, after all, but there are good stories to come out of these trips, at least.

Thursday, I had to go to the bank, so Hilda and I rode the bus downtown. As with other bus trips, she was a bit whiny. The good news is that Hilda is very people friendly. The bad news is that Hilda is very people friendly. She definitely would love to greet everybody with a wet nose to somewhere and a schlurpy tongue. Never met a stranger has our Hilda. Even so, we’ve seen a lot of improvement. She’ll sit fairly still for attention, and she’s not jumping on people so much these days.

She’s definitely got the whole curb concept down pretty well, as she stopped at all of them in this area that isn’t home and that she hasn’t been to in at least a couple months. Hilda got distracted on the way by, of all things, a bird. I’d have never known, except this guy was coming up from behind me and told me i could go on ahead, because he was just coming, but then told me that she was distracted by a bird in front of her. I assume standing in front of her, anyway.

She also definitely has the “Inside” and “Outside” concepts for finding a door pretty well, too. We passed my bank, which is right at the corner. I noticed this and cued “Inside”, and she zipped a 180 and marched us right to the door of the bank.

All that must not have been nearly enough adventure for our Hilda though. She wanted more. When we got to the bus stop, I accidentally dropped her leash, and somehow didn’t notice right off. A bus had just pulled up, too (not my bus, as it turned out). Next thing I know, I reach down and there’s no Hilda. I call her. I get her back, and I don’t remember if someone got her or if she came on her own, or a bit of both, but she had gotten on the bus without me. To go heavens only knew where, but I’m sure it would have been an adventure.

Today’s walk was just a routine trip to the drugstore. She missed stopping at exactly one curb, and that was a curb to curb left turn. She stopped at the first one, but when we turned left, she wasn’t going to stop at that one. She also went back to missing upcurb sidewalks by a couple feet again, and in a couple cases decided we needed some cross country experience, even though there were perfectly usable sidewalks that we found with a bit of encouragement. Except the one time. This one was as much my fault as hers. We started walking on some grass and dirt, and I stopped and cued to find the way, which turned out to be just a tiny bit to the left. So I thought. Next thing I know, wait, a curb? On the left? Oh no, you didn’t do what I think you did. Yeah, she did. Crossed the little side streeet we were meant to be walking along. Like I said, at least half my fault, because I thought it was a sidewalk, not a street. No traffic, you know.

On the way there, she showed she’s really starting to geththe funny jog the sidewalks on this one corner take to get to the crosswalk. I barely had to say anything to her to keep her going to the crosswalks correctly.

There was one funny thing that happened today though. We were crossing this tiny side street that dead ends into 29th, which we were walking beside. We’re crossing, and Hilda approaches this car that’s stopped and waiting for us to cross. I mean she seriously veered to the right to find this car. She must have really liked whoever, because she goes up to the driver’s side window, which was down, to say howdy, apparently. The driver sounded like a lovely person, she sounded very friendly as she told us we could go while we were walking around her car, but really, I don’t think that’s exactly the best way to meet people. Especially since she never properly introduced herself.