So much awesome happened on day 3 that it requires it's own post — the day after.
I’ve been putting him to bed about an hour before I actually go to bed. This has worked wonderfully, and he’s sleeping all night. Bonus!
Potty training: he’s pretty great. He doesn’t totally “ask” to go out, but if you are diligent and take him out, he potties immediately and doesn’t try to go up the steps into the house until he’s finished. And, try as they might, the Border Collies haven’t been able to distract him enough that he *can’t* potty.
Smack’s new favorite game is “Whack-A-Jack”. The ogre doesn’t seem to mind. Shock has adopted him as her own, and no one will treat him poorly when she is around.
Friday morning, after breakfast and a little bit of playing in the house, I decided to play with him outside at my house. We live on a lot of property. We have huge garden plots, lots of tall grassy areas, and is often swampy. A Great Blue Heron visits our swamp on a daily basis. We have a fence yard around the house, but I don’t want to play/engage where I expect Shrek to go potty. #clearboundaries
Holy cow the amount of awesome in this video is amazing (it's long, but unedited)
So, this environment is too hard for any puppy. But, it’s my home, so we had to give it a shot. I wasn’t perfect, but he didn’t seem to notice. Low value toys weren’t enough. The fuzzy red toy and food were great! Notice the lap turns in the beginning and the tandem turns at the end. It was great information. He was able to play and tug, but not as reliable on his retrieve as he has been in other locations (inside and outside). There were some times that I over-managed him. I really didn’t want him leaving the open area that is between the blackberries (behind me) and the garden (in front of me). He *was* about to offer some nose touches to my hand! That was fantastic! 3:35 was the best. He had the reward, he got distracted, I waited, he looked at me, I called, he came! GOOD PUPPY!
I love his leaps of joy. They make me happy. And, at 5:10, you can see he has his father’s dead-weight tugging skills. I could feel he was getting tired (as he should have been!), so we did a little more engagement, and I picked him up. Nearly 7 minutes. Holy moly!
After a nap, while I sent Karen Holik confirmations… we did our first Cone Work session for a snack of rabbit treats.
He did a lot of napping yesterday. Which means lots of growing, I hope!
For dinner, we did our second cone work session. And, well, he was a rockstar!
The only editing done to the video is the music overlay. Shrek did give me permission to record his learning, but Graham was practicing bassoon and I did *not* have permission to record his session 🙂
Enjoy! Oh! And, after dinner, this happened:
…And Shrek, I don’t think sliding under the kitchen chairs is going t work for you much longer…
