Training goals October 14-October 21: Socialization and Morning Walks for a happier and more well-rounded puppy

So on our walk this morning – puppy was cautious towards a man in a hat. As soon as he was super friendly to puppy, puppy was super friendly and confident. Two minutes later there was a big big big man with fishing gear. Puppy was again cautious and then super friendly once man was friendly.

Point is though I haven’t gone out of my way to socialize puppy with people even though she meets people everyday.

This week training will be focusing on “socialization” stuff bla bla bla…

The “agenda” is we will be going to Fred Meyer’s on our evening walks and hanging out in front of Fred Meyer so she can meet lots of people.

My other goal is to get up at 6 A.M. the rest of this week Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday to get puppy up for morning walk/run if she will get into it to see if it makes a difference in puppy’s afternoon craziness while I'm gone at work. The idea is to see if she'll be more content during the day. I always take her out for a good walk in the afternoons but I'm soooooo lazy about it in the morning.

I can do this! Why is it so hard to get up in the morning? And I really really love fall crisp mornings with all the fog – it’s kind of eery and a little bit spooky. If I can just get up in the morning!!

Plus with daylight savings time right around the corner – pretty soon the only time I can walk the dogs with any light at all will be in the mornings.

I really hope I can do this!

Lucy at 20 Weeks: Lucy and Loki ... mud mud mud!!

27ish pounds here.

They had a ball at the park yesterday...

Dirty wet puppy

Wet dirty puppy after a romp at the local dog park. Came when called every time! We gotta keep this up into adulthood some way some how!

Lucy at 19 weeks:)

Growing up so fast!! Lucy the first month or so we had her

She got stuck in the couch!!

Loose leash walking practice drill

I am re-posting the following with permission from the author Gwen_Dandridge from the following link:

 http://www.goldenretrieverforum.com/golden-retriever-training/226074-leash-training-101-a.html

1. start walking (in a place where it is easy to change direction). 

2. The second the dog hits the end of the leash turn around abruptly (do not call your dog) and start off in a different direction.

3. The dog will have to follow. 

4. When the dog AGAIN get to the end of the leash and you feel the least pressure on the lead, turn again and confidently head out in another direction.

5. Keep repeating until your dog is walking with a loose leash. 

6. Practice for ten to twenty minutes each day until he watches you and doesn't pull.
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What I really like about it is that it seems like it teaches two things at once: 1) loose leash walking; 2) your dog learns to check in with you more and focus more on you!

I'm really excited to try this out sometime:)

Recall practice!

So the boyfriend started helping me work on recall drills with our puppies. Friday and Saturday we took both the dogs out to a field and called them one at a time while one person held both dogs and the other called the doggie to them. It was a total blast and weather permitting, we'll do it again tomorrow:)

Tonight, I just took Lucy out to practice because I was alone and since she's the puppy she's the one that needs the most practice. So I took her to the field and there was this young girl age 10 or so who loved Lucy so much and wanted to help me train her. So she helped me practice recall with Lucy. And Lucy got practice "to come" to a stranger!!

Then Lucy and I practiced some down stays for the first time. Before it's only been sit stays. So she's starting to generalize the behavior. I've also learned my lesson to do these stays for very short periods of time at short distances in new circumstances so she's 100% successful. I can get her to sit stay for food no distractions for 3.5 minutes no problem but any distraction and all bets are off. So time to start working on lots of short stays in all kinds of scenarios.

But the best part of tonight was the walk home. She was bouncing off the walls so happy and pleased with herself. She would run 4 feet straight ahead and at the last second before it ended up with her pulling on the leash I would say "Lucy come!" And she would stop mid hop and bounce straight back to me! It was so great to see that even though she was super over stimulated happy bouncy she came when called every single time! So having turned it into a game is obviously working already! And of course lots of good treats.

I feel like we have the beginnings of a solid recall :) and with Josh's help, both of our doggies will become pros at this!!