Puppy Sleep Over

Last night, Tucker and Ellie came over for a sleep over in our itty bitty apartment to visit Lucy and Buddy.

Poor Buddy hardly appears in these pictures till at the end. He wasn't super happy about these other dogs on his home turf stealing all the best toys and sleeping spots.

Tucker - 5ish months in these pictures, 55 pounds yellow lab

Lucy - golden retriever 25 pounds 4ish months here

Ellie - 4yrs old black lab/part golden

Buddy- 4 yrs and all American mutt

Tucker pissed everywhere he's so excited, Ellie barked at strange noises because she's not used to being in an apartment, Lucy and Tucker had a blast (they're in puppy love... Just look at the looks on their faces) Buddy just did his own thing and tried to stay out of the way...

Buddy and Tucker

2 more from when Tucker was maybe 10 weeks.

Tucker all growed up!

Here's a picture of Tucker with Lucy taken last week. Tucker is close to 60 pounds in this picture and 5 1/2 months old. He keeps on growing!

Meet Tucker!

Cody Bear the Wonder Bear passed 6/17/13. He was truly such an amazing dog. Our hearts were broken. Shortly thereafter, all of us got puppies, unable to be dogless for long. Mom got Tucker (I named him!:), T got Loki and I got Lucy. 

Here are some pictures of Tucker at 7 and 8 weeks old. These days Tucker is a monster of a pup and still growing. 5 months and 60+ pounds. 

9 or ten weeks here:

Growing up:

Recent training progress & upcoming goals

• No accidents in over a week! This dog is finally house-broken?! I think our one mistake that delayed this a bit was by not crating her when we left the apartment at first. We were afraid she would bark. We would come home and there would be accidents when we weren’t there. Finally, we just decided to crate her while we were gone. Suddenly, it just clicked for her.

• No barking in crate! And she continues to get better about settling down and just letting Josh sleep during the day after I leave for work.

• Loose leash walking success! Seriously, before age 15 weeks we didn’t walk her at all pretty much because she wasn’t completely vaccinated and we were so afraid she would get parvo or some other dreadful stuff. She’s almost 19 weeks now and I have to say that she is unbelievably amazing on the leash for a puppy. Mostly, she’s distracted (but not too crazy or super pulling, mostly just going left to right to everywhere lol) for about the first half mile and after that she pretty much just settles into it. She knows what she’s supposed to do and that’s good enough for me. Mostly used clicker training at first. Bought a halti, used it once. I’ll use it more if she gets super crazy at pulling as she gets bigger. Will continue to work on this and work on distractions.

• Learned shake really fast!  Time to teach her something completely new while we work on the other basics. Next up, “Drop it”.

Upcoming training goals:

• Working on a longer in-sight stay – build up to 5 minutes over the next two weeks (right now max we’ve done is 3.5 minutes)

• Working on out of sight stay – we have done very little practice on this. So, time to switch it up a bit and incorporate some this.

• Work on “Drop-it” (right now zero/little concept). Really important for her to know because she gets into EVERYTHING. This dog will literally lick the dirt off the ground.

• Reinforce come command to build foundation to start building on this further.

Other goals still on the list:

• Off

• Wait

• Touch

• Up up (lol - eventually have her be able to turn off the lights for when I'm really lazy!!)

• Jump

• Put it away

• Pick it up

Long walk! Buddy and Lucy walking together

Didn't use the halti. Had both dogs connected to same leash. It was only their second time being connected to the same lead. First time was last night.Pretty much after the first half mile Lucy totally settled down. We went on a 6 mile urban stroll:) here's a picture of Buddy and Lucy walking nicely:)

I'd say Lucy is walking well on the leash :)

Also, she is AMAZING at doing an automatic sit every time I stop. (Trained her that by accident lol... See previous blog) 

Hmmmm, now what to focus on next in out training adventures?:)

The Gentle Leader - loose leash walking continued

EDIT: I just want to make it clear I am only using this as a training tool and will not become 100% reliant on gentle leader! I want to combine this with clicker training. 

 

So after one of my posts last week - pup pup had tons of energy and couldn't focus on loose leash walking! It was a very frustrating training session. Until I realized DUH - she's a puppy! She has tons of energy right now! She needs exercise before she can focus!

So I went out and got the gentle leader. I got it for my dog I had as a puppy about ten years ago. It worked like a miracle.

I decided to get it because there are some nights when my puppy just needs to get out and exercise. This allows her to get plenty of exercise and practice loose leash walking. There are times when puppy is relaxed and will loose leash no problem. And then there are times when she has a ton of energy.

Last week, when puppy had all that energy - our training session wasn't a complete loss. Oh no, not at all. Lucy realized that if she pulled on the leash we wouldn't going anywhere. She realized that as soon as she calmed down, sat, and looked at me I would click and we would begin walking again. So she was learning to refocus on me. But she had so much energy it was truly hard for her to calm down and focus. And it was frustrating for the both of us because it was a beautiful evening and all that either of us wanted to do was go on a walk.

So this is why I have purchased the gentle leader. As a temporary training tool. It gets the message across beautifully to the dog without the process of stopping every two feet when pup pup starts getting crazy excited. I've used it before and it just worked so well and was only a temporary training tool.

I really like the clicker because it makes the dog think about what the desired behavior is. And I will continue to use it for loose leash walking and other stuff. Really my puppy is really good most of the time. It's just that as her legs get longer, her energy crazier and never ending - I feel like the Gentle Leader is my best tool because it allows us to go on a walk with fewer interruptions. Thoughts/suggestions anyone?

And to finish it off, here are some pictures of Lucy at 18 weeks: