OK, so we are making progress. Sit now happens after the third command if I click my fingers behind his rump. We are making progress. Of a sort. He is at least walking to heel unless distracted by interesting things like other dogs, but that is also progress as before he would charge ahead and come to a thundering halt when he reached the end of the leash.

This morning's walk was interrupted rather drastically as we discovered that Esther had let herself out was we exited and had decided to follow us up the road. Not a good idea as the neighbour's dog was running loose in their yard. So we turned around and she followed us back home. Of course, once home she refused to go indoors so we continued down the lane (away from traffic at least) and she followed us once more, out onto the oval. Seb did what we had gone there to do and after I put the results in the bin we came back up the lane with Esther scampering ahead, into and out of the hedge and generally being silly. Eventually Seb gave up being a good dog and dashed after her. She dodged off to the side, scampered over to a pile of building materials and as she landed a long whiplash hurled itself out of the grass across her path, but fortunately behind her. She stopped dead, turned and perched looking down at what I presume was a snake as it wriggled off into the grass. Seb and I stayed on the lane and kept going, and Esther came when called (which is more than the dog does).

Once everyone was  safe indoors I headed down to Hobart to join some of my former class mates for breakfast in Salamanca Square (and to disparage the so-called Christmas Tree that council spent $35,000 on, then headed home, arriving just after lunch .

On our walk this afternoon we passed the Councillor, now president of the Parattah Hall, who was building a singularly unattractive letter box in front of the hall as he changes commitee members so often he has concluded getting the mail there is the only solution. Seb wandered over to say hello and Bob's opening words were 'where's his medal?' I looked blank so he elaborated and said 'his Reg'. I continued to look blank so he explained he meant registration tag. I said 'that would be the loop of black plastic beside your thumb' (he was petting Seb at the time). That shut him up, nasty little man.

The Dogs Home interview is being held in Howrah (it will be a challenge for me to find the venue as the roads in Howrah have altered considerably since the days I used to go there to visit friends), so I will have to set off fairly early to give myself time to drive around in circles till I find it. I am to take a name tag (doggy themed), writing paper and pen, water bottle and responses to the selection criteria which I have already supplied, but apparently many didn't. Since they are culling applicants for late attendance to cut the numbers down significantly, I would have thought that lack of response to the criteria would have been an obvious first cut, but what would I know?