Getting back

The flight home was nine hours in the air and that is a long time to sit. And of course, that only got us to Atlanta. We finally got back to the house after midnight. I picked up Bailey, Ted, and Candace on Thursday. I'll get Woody on Friday afternoon unless he has an adopter lined up, apparently there is an application for him. 

I'll do a post some day soon with pics from our trip to Lille for anyone who didn't see them on Facebook and with a bit more explanation even for those that did. It was a good introduction to the city and I experienced nothing to dissuade me from moving there, which is more than I can say about the prospect of staying here every time I see any bit of news. Two things about the trip gave me a real jolt of reality. First, I really need to learn the language before I'll ever feel really at home there. Lots of people have varying levels of English, particularly younger people, but not everyone. It's not a tourist town. We probably saw and heard only half a dozen people speaking English after a week of being there. 

The other thing, and this concerns me more, is that Bailey needs to learn and master social skills that I've never asked of her. We saw plenty of dogs, including a few Malinois, although smaller dogs were more the norm. But they all need city life skills, including learning to deal with strange dogs and strange people in an urban environment. That's a challenge for me as well, and I know that I really need to step up Bailey's training over the next couple of months. 

Towards that end, we went to the Out and About class Thursday evening, which was a walk to and through the Blue Ridge Tunnel. I had done this walk with Della maybe a year ago but hadn't done it yet with Bailey.