Tikka learns about walking

My mate BT is a legend. The man has not only tripled his wage in the last year, go you go thing go! But he has also the most patient soul I know. Seriously, he's so patient. Last night he and JJF came by with Bailey, the blackberry dog. They were out on a walk, and decided to ask if I wanted to come with. Unfortunately, Tikka's lead was in LJS's car, and she was out. I found some rope though, so it was used to keep Bailey in check, she already knows how not to pull. Tikka, on Bailey's lead, was a pulling maniac and BT took over. He managed to get that dog to actually walk alongside him for a little bit. Amazing! She usually needs her gentle leader to get her to stick to a decent speed. The trick, and here's where the patience comes in, was this: everytime she pulled, he'd stop, and make her sit next to him. At first she was only going a couple of steps and then pulling like a crazy dog. But after a little while she managed up to about 6 steps or so. Still not great, but a great improvement.
This morning, I took the Tikka dog out for a traning walk. We managed about 10 metres at one stage of walking alongside me without pulling. I think if I keep this up, she'll never need her gentle leader again. We'll probably go walking with the boys tonight, but I think I'll use the gentle leader. She might actually get some decent walking in then, rather than just around the block.
Enough of dogs though, I have news. I have written an outline for my introduction to my thesis. It's a brief document that outlines the topics I'll cover and the order I'll do it in. All I need now is approval from the supervisors and some help getting it just right and I can start writing the bastard. I've been doing a lot of reading recently, and it's been making me ask a whole bunch of questions, which in turn leads to more reading and more questions. I've got a lot to learn about my gene/protein, it's structure and all about pleckstrin homology domains. Wish me luck! I'm hoping that by next week I'll be actually composing the thing.
Other thesis related news, I have transformants. Perhaps only one, but if the insertion is on the X or II then I'm sorted. For all the non-geneticists out there, sorry, nerd speak there and now too. I'm using yellow+ as the selectable marker, rather than white+ and I'm finding it interesting to pick the transformants. I have one definite, I thought I had a white- fly on my pad, rather than a yellow- white- transformant that was a little bit dark. I wondered how the little fucker had got into the vial, until I realised he must be a transformant. Whee! A boy too, which makes it easier.
Best be off, I have to get up ridiculously early tomorrow, I'm starting boot camp with a mate from work. I have to get from Belconnen to Narrabundah by 6am. Guess who's getting up at 5am for the possible 30 mins scoot south? ME!