Well, we know he’s purebred! He loves plastic bottles and he steals neck pillows.
This afternoon, to get back into the swing of things after my “vacation”, we went to a new park in a new suburb. Friday afternoon, and 5 degrees, so no more than one kid at a time, easy to stay away from.
I was expecting very little correct behaviour. What I got was amazing.
I’d been wardriving trying to find some reliable wifi to do my classes, so he’d been in the crate in the car for a couple of hours. He tried once to rush out of the crate when I opened the door, but settled immediately when I stopped him and waited politely while I sorted out a leash and collar for him.
Nice LLW across the street to the park and into the park on the sidewalk. He got treats for having the leash loose, but not many since he appreciated them but didn’t seem to NEED them.
We walked all around the park on the wood chips with a loose leash. While we were doing that, several leashed dogs went by, which he glanced at but mainly ignored.
On our second lap, we hit most of the playground equipment – wobbly things, bouncy things, hammocks, stairs, very short slides. The guy is fearless. He loves to explore new things. What a fun pup! Even the truly difficult item – a series of hammocks set off the ground at various distances from each other that needed to be walked over as if they were branches of trees or lily pads in a pond – gave him pause but didn’t scare him. With one back paw back THERE, one up HERE, and both front paws on a third hammock, it was patently impossible for him to take another step forward to a fourth one – but when I told him he could and put a wiener in front of him, he gave it a shot and discovered that he COULD do it (with a little help). What a fun pup!
More dogs went by, and a youngster came out of nowhere galloping toward him yelling DOGGY DOGGY. I called him, he came, and we went for a lovely loose-leash trot in the opposite direction while mommy got her kid under control. That surprised me. He love love loves kids but he came quickly and cheerfully when I called him. When she was playing her own games, we went back near her and practised remembering how to do short sit and down stays.
On the third lap we went briskly. He tried to stop me a couple of times but was unsuccessful. I kept going, called him when the leash tightened, and rewarded him again when he’d walked a bit with it loose.
The fourth lap we went slowly and he got to do some detail sniffing.
On the way back to the car, we worked on paying attention to which side of a post he has to walk on. It took him 8 tries to remember that the correct answer was MY side, but at least he’s very good at untangling the leash when he’s mistaken about the original attempt.
Lovely session. Calm, relaxed, friendly, cheerful. Marina, you make good puppies!