Canine Good Citizen

Almost 2 weeks before his 10-month birthday, Magnum passed his Canine Good Citizen test.  I think he is the youngest of my dogs to have earned it.  It’s really not hard, but I know many dogs that have to try several times.  There are about 10 areas the dog is graded on – walking next to you and turning, sitting, downing, coming when called, having a friendly stranger examine their teeth, ears, feet, and pet them, meet a stranger with a dog and sit while humans shake hands and talk, and then be left with a stranger in another room for 3 minutes.  The being left does in many dogs.  They can’t jump up or bark/whine while waiting for their owner to return.

It is a challenge to arrange my days to accomplish personnel goals, which are outside of my fun activities by myself and with friends and my commitments to several boards.  It has made me think about Steve Jobs statement “…for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: 'If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?' “ 

It’s not that I am doing things I don’t want to do, but that there are some things I want to accomplish and find my days are busy.  I think this may be the great challenge in retirement for me.  I still have some personal goals I want to accomplish.  So, how do I structure my days and time so that I have blocks of time for my personal goals.  I’m not there yet, but I am thinking about it.

I haven’t been good about writing this blog and was going to quit, but decided I would continue until my one-year anniversary.  Then I will either stop or create a new blog.