I need to get “serious” about playing with him. I said that last week and haven’t done anything about it yet.
Had a good puppy class. While everybody else was leading their puppies back around into heel position we had a lot of opportunity to work on pocket hand. He does a great job with it (especially since we only did a minute of it in class last week) and really started to think that maybe heel position was an alternative to sitting in front of me. He can’t do that sidestepping for too long, though. He got tired and then he started to get frustrated so we stopped.
Sit and down both went well. While he was practising down durations he remembered that I’d rewarded him for putting his head down in a some previous session. Clever boy.
Got some duration and distance on the sit which we didn’t have before, as well as getting out to his side and I got to go around him a few times holding him in place with a wiener. Couldn’t do that before.
Played the Name Game – toss a treat, as soon as he’s eaten that one, say his name and toss another one. That’s what we needed for the natural tendency to think about going out the dog door if he thinks I might be about to work on his ears.
There was a guy walking around outside the training building in white pyjamas and a navy blue dressing gown. Strange how a 4-month-old puppy can make me think “Yeah, mind your business, son – I’ve got a Giant Schnauzer!”
Then we came home, he climbed in my lap, and we watched tv for an hour. Or Ron and I watched tv. Spider snored.