Time Flies

I can't believe more than a month has gone by since my last post.  Since the weather has been very nice, I've been spending gobs of time working on my flower beds.  I did post some videos during that time, but I didn't write any posts to go with them.

Willie was 17 weeks old on Monday.  His legs have grown so very long, and  I noticed four adult teeth last Friday.   His training is coming along nicely.  So far we've worked on:

• sit
• down
• stand
• stay
• sit pretty
• wave (left and right paws)
• high five (left and right paws)
• celebrate (high five with both paws at the same time)
• bow
• crawl
• put four feet in a relatively small box
• balance disc
• retrieving (very much a work in progress)
• Buja board
• heel
• side
• front
• behind (switch from one side of me to the other by moving in back of me)
• around (both me and other objects)
• spin and twirl (clockwise and counter-clockwise, respectively)
• recall
• nail clipping
• touch
• putting names to objects (we've got a long way to go on this one)
• waiting patiently at the back door
• waiting to be released from his crate
• tugging
• front cross
• rear cross (definitely the more difficult cross for Willie to understand)
• travel plank (for the 2o2o contact I'm hoping for on the dog walk)
• hoops and gates

I try to work with Willie at every meal so that we have at least three short sessions each day.  The wonderful thing about working with a puppy is that there is no time pressure to accomplish anything.  After all, he's a puppy!  We can't compete until he's 18 months old.  Therefore, I can take my time and lay a solid foundation and let him mature physically and mentally.

Willie was offering too much handler focus when we were working with hoops.  He was actually running into some of them!  I decided to see if using a few gates would help him focus on where he was going.