Day 18 - PetSmart

It's been a pretty crummy day weather-wise, so we really haven't gotten to do much of anything outside. Thank goodness for the training room in the basement so we at least have a dry space to have our training sessions and get a good game of tug in a few times a day. I worked from home today, so Jedi got to hang out around the house today while I worked. He's getting to spend more and more time outside of the puppy pen lately (although that's where he is tonight while I have my school seminars).

We saw a bit of a breakthrough today with potty training. For the first time Jedi started going and standing by the door to indicate that he needed to go out. Additionally, when I opened the door for him he went out, down the deck, and went potty without me needing to accompany him (which is super nice when it's raining). Now all that's left is for him to figure out the dog door and he can let himself out. He watches the other dogs go through but so far I haven't seen him give any indication on his own that he's curious about it. I've lifted the flap and called him through it a few times so that he at least has an idea of the mechanics of it. The "step" in from outside is still a pretty big jump for him, though, so he might need to get a little bigger before he's comfortable coming in. I'll have to work with him on going out, too, as I imagine the step down will be easier.

It was still raining when I finished up with work today, so I decided to make our outing of the day a trip to PetSmart. I'd pretty much been saving this one for a day just like this one, so off we went. Today I opted to take Jedi by himself, as I feel it's important for him to get used to doing stuff alone, too (something I probably don't ever do enough for my other dogs).

He traveled well by himself on the trip to Onalaska. He's doing great in the 36" crate in the van (thankfully he's stopped chewing on the water dish). Jedi is turning into a good little rider, which is pretty important given how much we travel around for agility. He rides quietly and has figured out that it's pretty much just nap time.

When we got to PetSmart I gave him the chance to potty before going into the store -- he peed and pooped on a short leash in the rain, so that's a win. We spent a good amount of time traversing the aisles in the store. I pretty much just let him sniff whatever he wanted. If someone wanted to say hello, I encouraged it -- and also warned them that he has no manners yet and will climb all over them.

He played tug with his leash in the aisles, which was awesome. They had baby-sized Chuck-It bumpers there, so I picked up one of those for our next trip to water. I also got some of the obnoxious prickly squeaky balls, but I'll probably save those for another cruddy day with nothing to do. The clearance bin had a fairly cute harness for $5 that currently fits Jedi on all of the smallest settings (it's a medium), so I went ahead and bought him that so he wouldn't have to keep stealing Kizzy's (important since she's down to one harness after the plastic snap broke on her JK9 in Chicago). I hate step-in harnesses, but I figure it's short-term.

I thought about stopping and walking around a park on the way home because the rain had let up a bit, but I figure we'll save that for another day. It was already going to be almost 7:00 before I got home and everyone still needed dinner. Jedi's training session went well tonight, we're probably about ready for video. He's been really stuck on the pivot for a while now and I think we're starting to get there.