This is “Gus”.
He is about 5 months old now and has been living with his family for 7 or 8 weeks. I was told that he got very aroused at dinner time and especially when the family was grilling hamburger.
So, in my lesson with him we practiced “settle” while I was grilling hamburgers and “settle” while I was pretending to eat and enjoy hamburgers and then we practiced “leave it” while I placed the juicy hamburger within Gus’s reach. As you can see: He learned so quickly.
It never ceases to amaze me how well dogs can “leave” things if it is a highly rewarded activity.
I have continued work with Oreo. Aside from the fact that she is now really wild about jumping onto her balance pads and inflatable peanut shaped balls she is also learning some smaller motor skills. Here is an example of her crossing paws. A couple of months ago she simply was not able to make that kind of movement. It was a wonderful experience for both of us when she was finally able to do this after many, many tries! I guess now we can work on “left over right” next!
more shoulder mobilityIsis and Bear are getting so good at their “four paw” piano skills. Isis plays “bass” and Bear ” melody”.
Last but not least there is Buddy. Buddy has been “on fire” lately. I thought that ringing this old fashioned service bell might be difficult because it is quite a delicate operation to make the bell ring. At first I thought he might have to do it with a nose touch because when he touched it with a paw the lever did not respond properly. He has to hit it “just right” to make it work.
Well, Buddy proved me wrong! Here he is ringing that bell:
