4 Classes down....

Wow, I can not believe that we have made it through 4 puppy school classes. Winston is doing super in class. Okay as of our last puppy school post, he was a social butterfly. However, that has really changed. I am not sure if he as started settling down because he is now 4 months old, because of class, or because we had Riley and Teri here for a week. Nonetheless, it is wonderful that he has really become a little less busy and social!

WEEK 4 NEW TRICKS:

• Stay


• Loose Leash Walking with leave it added (this is where we walk and if he begins to sniff we reinforce it with the Leave it we learned last week)


• Come when called

Alright our biggest challenge this week coming will be STAY!! He has to stay for 15 seconds by next weeks class. Then.....he has to stay for 30 seconds to graduate! You better believe that we have been working on this one. There is no way he will not graduate or make us look bad. Therefore, Chris and I both have really been working hard with STAY! I think as of tonight we can get the little stinker to stay for and average of 8-10 seconds. That is okay but 15 is our goal!!! I also really want to work on the Come when Called. He is okay at coming over when you call his name. However, this afternoon we took him down to the park for some larger area fetching. He loves to fetch his ball and here we can let him off the leash (well Chris does and I worry the whole time he may not come when called). Today out of the 6-8 times we called his name to come he came about 6...it was those 2 times he ignored us that make me worry. We must continue to work not so much for Chris but for my PEACE OF MIND!

THINGS WINSTON ROCKS AT:

Here are the past tricks that he really has down amazingly!

• Sit


• Lay


• Look at me


• Socialization

As you can see from the picture above SIT has been mastered! Occasionally he will lay instead of sitting, but about 90% of the time when asked he sits. Now lay I think is his favorite....he loves to lay. You simply from the sit command point down and poof he is laying! Look at me he, again from the picture above, he does pretty well. This is how we normally get him to stop doing what every crazy thing he should not be doing. REALLY REALLY, do you have to wonder if our dog would be social. Come on, of course he is and has improved. This week at class he actually was able to block out the other friends and focus on his tricks. When he sees other dogs he simply sniffs, looks, and walks away. He has come such a long way from the 1st class. We are very proud of our little guy....and lets just hope 30 seconds is not to hard to achieve for a stay!