Pushing the envelope

Steve and I are pushing the envelope of Dionnysian good behavior this weekend -- pushing her to see if she can be very, very good. We're attending a conference in Mission Valley and decided she should attend too.

We started with an easy session at 1 this afternoon, in a large conference room that was less than half full. It was easy to nab aisle seats with no one in the adjoining spaces.  Dionne went into the Down position and pretty much stayed in it, with minimal changes in position and only one whimper-filled nightmare.

We arrived late for the next session, held in a much smaller room. Only a few seats remained, near the front of it. I gulped and marched forward with Dionne to nab one -- the third place into the row of five. This was much more challenging. She went into her Down, but she's now long enough so that she filled part of the space in front of the men sitting on either side of me. The old guy on my right seemed to be a dog lover. He even tried to pet her (NOT helpful) and whispered at one point that she was fine. But her excessive interest in his toes was not okay with me.

The lanky young guy on my left looked much less pleased. (She thought his toes smelled intriguing too.) I swung her body so that it was positioned more directly in front of my chair. Then I spent much of the next hour shoving my foot in whenever she started to edge out of that space. After a long, long time, she settled down into a deep sleep. I had to wake her up when the presentation was over.

Here's she's still in that easy first session.  I was too
nervous to photograph her in the second one.

We left at that point but are about to return for the conference party and film that's scheduled to be aired at 8 p.m. We'll take her back again tomorrow too.

How much of this can she stand? How much can we?

We'll see.