Sunday has been the best day yet!

Willow - Thursday night

Willow during the playtime at Puppy Train and Play Wednesday Night

Today has been a great day!  We are now on day 3 with no potty accidents!  Willow actually went to the door and scratched on it twice today to go out.  We gave her tons of praise petting and a jackpot treat, a cookie from PetCo (a sandwich cookie)  It is her favorite cookie.  Those two things make today a red letter day!

We upped the ante on the touch exercise today.  I started putting a sticky note on my hand.  At first Willow was really confused and kept touching outside the sticky note.  So, I started moving my hand to keep the sticky note in front of her nose. I did this 3 or 4 times and then she got it and would touch the paper without my moving my hand (most of the time).  When I made a fist and put the sticky note on it she touched the note every time and stopped trying to find a spot on my hand that didn't have the sticky note.

This morning we had a good time at the local park.  we were the only ones there.  I put her on the 20 foot training lead so that she could run around a bit.  She loved that!  Especially when I threw her ball for her (Kong SqueakAir Tennis ball).  the great thing is she brought the ball to within 6 inches of me 3 times.  That is a record for her.  When we got back from the park we went for a walk around the block.  Three of the kids across the street were out playing (1 girl, about 10 yrs old, 1 boy about 8 yrs old, 1 boy about 6 yrs old.).  I know these children and know that they can be gentle and not get too wild or excited around a dog and they are not fearful of dogs.  So I asked them to help me with Willow.  I told them that she hadn't met or seen any new people today and would like their help because she has to learn to behave around them.  They of course were thrilled.  They came up quietly and calmly to Willow and we introduced her to them.  Then they began petting her.  When she would try to jump on them they took 2 steps back, crossed their arms and turned their backs on her.  Willow didn't like that.  When she stopped jumping they would turn around again and give her attention.  This happened twice before she got the idea if she jumped on them she wouldn't get petted.  They said their parents taught them that because they just got a new puppy and are trying to train him not to jump.  After about 5 minutes we continued our walk.  I heard someone calling me and turned around to see the dad of the kids running towards me.  He wanted to meet Willow too.  her had been  watching the kids and Willow and he told me how impressed he was.  She is so calm even when excited.  She's also more than twice the size of  their pup and only 3 weeks older.  He just cant' believe the difference in the 2 dogs.  He has been observing Willow since we got her on August 30th. Within about 20 seconds the kids had come to join him as well as the other 3 kids that were at their home. So there were now 6 kids ranging in age from 1 1/2 to 10 yrs.  I was amazed at Willow.  With the older kids she tried to get a little rambunctious but with the 2 small children she was very gentle and didn't once try to jump on them even though they had food in their hands and  you could see she really wanted it.  So I decided it was to to seal the friendship with the kids.  All 6 kids had Popsicles and a cookie in their hand.  I asked the kids if they would like to take turns and each give Willow a treat.  They were ecstatic!  I laid the ground rules.  One person at a time and Willow had to finish one treat before she could have another.  The kids were great, even the 2 little ones.  They each quietly and gently gave Willow her treat (I took 2 doggy cookies and broke them into 3 pieces each).  Willow and the kids were having a great time.  I felt like a meany but we needed to continue our walk so we said good bye and continued on.

Willow loved the cooler air we had today and she thoroughly enjoyed her walk.  By the time we got home she was one pooped pup.  She went into her crate as soon as I took her leash off and laid done and went right to sleep.  She slept for almost 2 hours.

It will be interesting to see how tomorrow goes since I will be working again.

Till next time my friends...

Sept 14th

This still feels a little weird writing about my experiences with Willow.  Laurie assures me this will be very useful, especially on those days when she is being a little stinker and it seems like we are starting all over again.

This morning was great.  When we went outside for the first time I let Willow play a bit after she did her business and while I cleaned up her little presents in the yard.  Boy for such a little thing she sure can produce some MEGA stinky pooh!  While outside I decided to water a couple of planters and that's when the fun began.  At first Willow didn't want anything to do with the water and that was fine but the little drops of water coming off the end of the hose and sprayer were just too much for her to resist!  She came up right beside me and began trying to catch the drops of water.  It was funny.  It got even funnier when she realized that the spray was lots and lots of drops of water.  She began running under the spray and jumping up and trying to get the drops.  Every so often she would drop into a crouch and then proceed to roll in the grass under the spray.   She was having a blast and I was laughing so hard I nearly wet my pants!  She can be a real hoot sometimes.  When I turned the water off Willow gave me this really disgusted look.  She would look at me and then look pointedly at the hose as if to say "Turn the water back on, I wasn't done having fun yet." But I had to get ready for church and we still needed to do some training and have breakfast.

Willow only had one accident today and that was totally my fault.  She had been doing so well that I forgot to set the timer to remind me when it was time to take her out and I got busy making dinner.  Of course that is when she would have a problem.  But we went outside and she did her business again and then we played a little and I had my husband watch her while I finished getting dinner ready.

We did 5 short training sessions today.  Willow was having a real difficult time concentrating. We worked on her name, touch, sit, stand, and sit to touch and stand. We also spent a bit of time playing with toys today and I was finally able to get her to play with some toys.  Her current favorite is the large Hedgehog that grunts and squeaks.  She also likes the tennis ball that squeaks and the Minnie Mouse Water Bottle toy.  She is beginning to get the idea of go get it.  we play with Hedgehog and I tell her to go get it when I throw it.  She will go chasing after it and then she will do one of two things.  She will either start wrestling with it and making it squeak and/or grunt or she will bring it to me to throw again.  I praise her lavishly and she gets a jackpot/high value treat for bringing it to me.

There were a couple of times today when Willow just wanted to lay beside me and chill.  She would take one of her chew toys and just chill.  I really had a chance to enjoy her today and not constantly worry about her pottying in the house and being super active.

Today on our walk Willow met 5 men (a short and heavy, a tall and skinny, a bald guy, a young guy, and an old guy); she also met 3 women (Short with long black hair, Tall with very straight blonde hair, older with curly gray hair) and several children one of which was very scarred of her.  I am continually amazed at how well Willow walks on a leash for being so young.  95% of the time she walks with a loose leash.  She walks better than any of the older dogs I have had.  I never expected that. I am also amazed at how quickly she recovers from being startled.  I try hard not to give her reinforcement of startled or scarred behaviors but I am only human and sometimes I mess up.  I notice that if I am very matter of fact and pretend like it's no big deal she usually acts that way as well.  I try to remove her from  those situations as soon as I can.

Tomorrow should be interesting.  It will be my first day working from home, I have a meeting with Laurie to develop our training plan for Willow and I, and Willow gets to spend the day at the vets because she needs to be checked to see if her UTI has cleared up and because of working I won't be able to pick her up till about 4:30 pm and will have to drop her off at 7:00 am.  My vets office encourages the pet parents to leave their pets there all day so the staff can play with them and the pets can learn that this is a good place to be and these are good people.  It actually makes exams easier on everyone.

Well, I have rambled enough for today.

Till next time...