Catch up post

At her last weigh in at the vet's, Keeper's over 105 pounds.

Kennel training progresses steadily. Not only has she gone in without food, she'll go in under gentle collar pressure instead of going mulish and sitting to avoid going in. The parents were out for a couple hours while I was at work, so Keeper spent some time in her big grey box. Seemed very content (the bully stick had nothing to do with this, I'm sure) when they got home.

Retrieve work has paid off on the metal bowls. She's now tried bringing me her bowl randomly for reward, and also as a "I don't want to do that. Can I got paid for this instead?" She also fetched it for the little girl who brought us our Girl Scout cookies earlier this month.

Took Keeper to the local shopping center Tuesday morning for lots of work on hopping up and walking along the boulder/wall/seating they have throughout the area. Still slightly worried by people walking by, but not so much as the last visit. Got some nice sits and downs on the walls, and she got to explore the statue with the hat after being worried by it.

We'll be going back in the near future, and plan on hanging out some more before the shops are open as it gives her time to focus on the work I'm asking of her without the distractions of traffic and people. We'll work up to that some other day.

She did come bouncing out of the car, so that's a huge improvement. l do want to get her out with the Setters as role models to the "love everyone" attitude. It's less that she's scared or truly shy, and more that she isn't sure about what we're doing and how to handle things. From her behaviors around the house, I know she'll model off the other dogs and warm up faster than we could manage with just her and me.

This afternoon Keeper was boofing softly at the 'stranger' in the straw hat out in the garden, as Mom was out planting her first seeds and onion sets of the year. I decided to put Keeper in the Kurgo (it fit Strider, and Duncan, and now Keeper- really pleased with it as a car harness for large dogs.) Snapped a seatbelt connector on Duncan's collar since I can't find my traffic lead, and we went out to inspect the person in the garden.

Walked Keeper up over a 15 or 20 foot long section of chain link that will be going up as a bean or pea trellis. Not so much as an ear twitch about the odd footing. Said hi to Mom, made Keeper drop and leave the sun-bleached husk of a cucumber (had to stare at it for a bit to figure out WTF she'd found), asked Duncan to fetch a toy... and got blown off. Between the lack of fetch/tug interest and him spitting out a bullystick (which was when I looked in his mouth to find the broken molar), I can only imagine how much Mr. Stoic's tooth is bothering him. I'm glad it's coming out Tuesday.

Did sits and downs and recalls and some momentum work in the harness (we have "left" figured out. "right" is more miss than hit.) Got her to pee outside the dog yard, and was generally pleased with how things are progressing. There were no treats for the outside work, just praise and petting. I would have used food, if I'd remembered to prep and bring food. Accidental proofing because of brain fatigue from yesterday. She did a play retrieve with a Kong a few times, and one with the soft toy Duncan didn't want to grab.

Came inside, snagged a handful of kibble and did a "leave it" where I backed up. She'll hold the leave it about 6 seconds if I'm 3-4 feet away before she needs a verbal reminder. Picked up the kibble and hand fed it to her, then got another handful and tried it with all the young dogs laying down in a semicircle and me kneeling inches away from their paws. Sunny lasted about 4 seconds, then got up and ran away from the stress rather than do "wrong" and eat. Twist, Duncan and Keeper made it to 15 seconds, at which point I released them to eat and called Sunny back over for her share.

I think that puts Keeper and I working on various steps in level 2 for Zen (Leave it), Come, Down, Sit, Target, Crate, Lazy Leash (Loose leash walking), and working in level 3 for Handling and Jump (as relates to car manners) for the new Levels by Sue Ailsby (that have 4 levels). Still a long ways to go, but nice, solid progress, that isn't reliant on treats or a treat bag.