So Lucy is 7 months old! So young yet so big! Chewing on everything, jumping, endless energy, thinking twice about coming when called, not so great on the leash... It's time for puppy to learn some manners!
The holidays were crazy and now here we are:)
January goals:
1. Coming when called: proofing against smells. Lucy will be on the leash 90% of the time. She's grown up and loves to smell stuff. But she takes her time smelling things. It's time for her to learn that come immediately... Not 20 seconds or a minute later....
2. Loose leash walking. I know how I'm supposed to do this but haven't had the patience. I tend to just go exercise my dogs places they can be off leash.
Right now I'm conditioning Lucy to wear a gentle leader. She's not the biggest fan so we are going to be practicing with her just wearing it indoors for awhile. Tonight's session went pretty well.
If I'm going to make progress on loose leash walking, I want her to wear the gentle leader on the times we aren't training. I need it as a back up tool.
What I mean is, if I'm going to be spending all this time reinforcing that it's only acceptable to go forward when the leash is loose, then every time she's on the leash we need to reinforce that concept. And since it's not practical to make every outing a training session, that's where the gentle leader comes in:)
And again... I'm not planning on depending on the gentle leader 100% just as a reinforcement tool.
This dog is super smart. She might be a crazy puppy but it's time to put her to the test. I know she's capable of this stuff!!!
Here are some pictures of her getting used to the gentle leader:
In other news, buddy remains the perfectly well behaved dog. Lucy has some big shoes to fill!
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