Day 23 - First day of puppy class!

Jedi had a super full day today and he is one tuckered out puppy tonight. It's not often that we come home and he immediately crashes at my feet. Actually, I'm not sure that's ever happened! But that's where he is now, about 15 minutes after we got home from teaching class.

I worked from home all day today and Jedi had a really good day! It was chilly out this morning, but not so bad that I felt like I had to shut the screen door -- So Jedi had free access to the outdoors all day and he tends to do pretty well with this arrangement. Last night I think I heard him bat at the dog door. I don't think he had to go out because when I got up and took him out he pretty much just looked at me, but if he's expressing interest in what the dog door does (or allows him to do) then that's a good thing.

Normally Jedi runs full bore until about 8:30 or 9:00, but this morning he was down for the count at 8:00 (which is nice, because my email seems to explode on Monday mornings). My heart melted when I looked down and saw that Jedi had cuddled into Luke -- and Luke didn't move away! At one point Luke positively squished Jedi into the couch, but Jedi was happy as a clam with this arrangement. Everyone always loves Luke, and it's nice when Luke gives in and accepts it.

After a mid-morning flurry of puppy activity, Jedi crashed again around 11:30. I felt bad that I had to wake him up for his lunch training session, but we had a vet appointment at 1:00 and we needed to get everything done and out of the way before we had to leave. Someone was kind of cranky about this! I took our training session outside at lunch and had the other dogs there, but Jedi was not interested in competing with them (they were being obnoxious). Because of this I ended up putting the other dogs in the house, but he still just wasn't in a working mood. Oh the grumbling and barking he did in protest.... I'll be honest, I'm not a huge fan of training outside, either, because he really sucks at finding food that falls in the grass.

At any rate, we were literally getting nowhere so eventually I packed it up and we went down into the basement. This seemed to wake him up a bit and he turned on and was back into his usual mode. Past experience has shown me that Jedi is not a fan of working in the heat -- and while I wouldn't call the mid-60s hot, we did finally have sun and it was a lot warmer outside than it has been. Still, though, I see more outdoor sessions in our future.

Our vet visit went well today. I once again had three dogs -- This time it was Luke, Kaiser, and Jedi. We got everyone weighed first and Jedi came in at 12.4 lbs today!! Wasn't he just 10.6 or something last Tuesday?! I thought Jedi was just getting another puppy booster today, but I guess he was on the roster for his first Lyme vaccine. He was a super good boy, playing in the exam room while we waited and then tugging to keep him out of the way for Luke's exam. He didn't seem to appreciate the shot at all, but was easily distracted with treats in his face. Unfortunately he's been a bit sensitive to touch since receiving the vaccination, so this is something I'll bring up with the vet when we go back in a couple of weeks to see what he says. It's nothing major, but he has whined a couple of times when picked up in ways that have never elicited a reaction before.

I thought he'd crash when we got home, but pretty much the opposite was true. Knowing we had class coming up tonight I finally put him in the x-pen at 3:00 for a bit of a forced nap, and he was able to sleep until I started moving around again at 4:45. Probably not quite enough, because he was one tired boy when we went to class tonight.

I got to class about a half hour early to get settled in and ready, and Jedi got to meet a nice young female lab that belongs to the other trainer. They did very well together until she started getting a little frisky, and I think he was just too tired to reciprocate and he did more hiding under me.

My puppies are a little older this session, with a couple in the 5-month range. The other two are 16/17 weeks, though, so there are a couple that are closer to Jedi's age. It's going to be fun teaching this class and talking about the stuff I'm doing with my own puppy. I gave them a bit of a background in what I'm doing with Jedi and why. They probably think I'm nuts. We started the class with playtime and everything went well. It seems like a nice group of pretty balanced puppies that should do well together. We have a little tripod Cavalier puppy that was a little timid and Jedi was really perfect for her tonight (we'll see if he's so subdued next week).

Jedi was the perfect class dog. He got to stay out the entire puppy class and demonstrated luring (oh the horror, I really haven't done much of this with him, lol) and walking on leash. The best news is that he made it all night without having any accidents inside! I got him outside between classes and he took care of everything, then made it until we left. Good boy!

Jedi stayed in his crate for the Advanced class and did very well. A couple of our guests were smitten with him and hung out by his crate to keep him company. After class was done I still had a bit of Jedi's dinner left over. Jedi got to meet a nice young (7 month old) boxer who had hung out after class, and then we got to show that family his tricks! They were pretty impressed with his Beep-Beep and the "pee trick" that his backing into "bottom" has turned into. I'll have to be sure to get that one on the next video.

We didn't get out of there until almost 9:00 and I had one pooped puppy at the end (he ran out of gas with three stairs left to go on the way out). I stopped at Walmart on the way home to restock on yogurt for the dogs and when I came back out to the van he didn't even lift up his head! We went out and he went potty, then he's pretty much been crashed since we got back in the house. Wee dude is tuckered out from his action-packed day! I'm sure he'll be back and ready for more tomorrow.