Jedi's puppy seminar wore him out, which had the added bonus of lingering into today! Last night Jedi finally crashed around 8:30. I let him stay out of the crate last night and he stayed on the bed for the most part. I had to call him back up once and then he stayed put. We had a thunderstorm pass through around 4 a.m. and when I woke up Jedi was still on the bed. He wasn't on the bed anymore when I woke up around 6:20. When he came back up onto the bed his feet were wet, so it would appear he let himself outside. Since today was a work from home day I was super lazy and we stayed in bed until 7:00. Jedi did a good job at learning to cuddle in bed.
Inspired by all of the balance and conditioning work we did as part of the seminar, Jedi and I went downstairs to play with FitPaws equipment for his breakfast today. We played with the paw pods for this entire session. I started out with just two of them and focused on the front end, then added two more and mostly focused on the hind end. Jedi was very actively offering touches, but he was all over the place and perhaps moving too much for this exercise. I rewarded pretty much everything, though, and there were several times where he managed both hind feet on different pods. When trying to get all four feet on separate pods he would often share the same pod with a front/hind foot set. He'll get there.
We had a super quiet morning. Jedi was ready for his nap not long after breakfast. I'd say he was down for the count by 8:00, which is almost unheard of for him. He didn't move much until around lunchtime when I took everyone outside to clean up the yard. Jedi's lunch was going to have to wait, though, because today I was taking my dad out to lunch to make up for missing Father's Day yesterday since I was gallivanting around with Jedi. Jedi got to hangout in his crate while I was out.
My dad came in to say hello to the dogs when he dropped me off and I was good about asking Jedi to maintain his crate criteria by waiting until released when I opened the door. That was a real challenge for him with the excitement of me coming home AND my dad being there, but he did great! Once my dad left I grabbed Jedi's lunch and we went downstairs where we played on the FitPaws stuff again. This time I wanted to focus on him getting front feet on paw pods while the back feet were on the small balance disc. This really worked his core nicely, as those back feet were really engaging on the disc while he moved his front feet around. I didn't realize it until the end, but I think I may have somehow ended up shaping a drumming motion with the hind feet. I hadn't noticed it, but suddenly it seemed like he was doing it along with his front foot placement every time, and since I was clicking for the front feet he was also being rewarded for the drumming. It was super cute, we'll see if it happens again.
All was quiet until around 3:00 or so, when Jedi came back from inside all wet (surprise, surprise) and was waving a toy in my face. I figured he was due for some play time after such a quiet day, so I took him out and we played games with the cones for a while. We did a few "multi-spins" around the cone until Jedi started to get "stuck," at which point we moved to more forward motion. After a few repetitions I moved the cones further apart so that Jedi could build up a little more speed between turns. He's doing so well with these exercises. There was a lot less ducking behind me on the left today, too. We finished with a few straight-up fetches of the toy, and while doing so I decided to, just for giggles, see if Jedi would hold his sit while I threw the toy and wait until released. I was flabbergasted when HE DID. Every time! Holy buckets, when did he learn to do that?
Tonight was the first night of a new session of puppy classes, which meant that Jedi got to meet a bunch of new puppies! What a fun group we have for this class. They are all the perfect age, ranging from the youngest at 12 weeks up to just a little older than Jedi. The puppies were all extremely compatible during the first play session tonight. There were a couple of quieter puppies who more or less congregated with each other, and a few bolder puppies who stuck together. They are also very similar in size, save for the Cavalier puppy. Jedi had loads of fun and played very appropriately with everyone (even the Cavalier). He really enjoyed the Labrador, Springer Spaniel, and Labradoodle puppies. He got humpy a time or two but was able to keep quiet while he played this week.
Jedi was a good boy during class. The first week is always so much talking, so I kept Jedi busy by playing tug and shoving food in his mouth while he offered a ton of "sit pretty." Then he was a super demo dog while we worked on food ignoring -- super in that he was absolutely horrible at first. lol He quickly progressed to food on the floor, though, so he was able to show how to work through the steps. Then he was a pretty bad demo dog for the mechanics of luring because he was still in sit pretty mode and kept trying to grab onto my hands to go up (yeah, I should probably wean that and/or work the skill more the way we did at the seminar). But again, always good to demo some of the struggles you might encounter.
I entertained Jedi with a toy while the other dogs worked on beginning their walking on leash skills, but he was a model citizen when I very briefly walked him in a circle to give everyone a clear picture of "I don't expect heel position, but I want the leash to be loose." We talked a lot about toys and play tonight and I asked everyone to bring toys to class next week. I hope, if anything, they took something away from seeing Jedi play so much tonight. I really want to make it a big part of class and I hope it's well-received.
We ended the day with an introduction to restrained recalls. I warned the class that Jedi was probably going to start screaming in his crate and I was pretty much right. Lucky for Jedi, I don't think the class had a super clear picture of what it was that I was asking them to do, so after two dogs had gone I went to get him out of his crate for a demonstration (and yes, we maintained crate criteria!). He got to do two of them since the holder didn't release him on cue the first time, so I ran out of room to run. The good news is that the demo seemed to help and it got everyone a little more animated. Plus, who doesn't like to see a puppy like Jedi doing fun restrained recalls? :o)
After everyone left for the night I spent some time playing with Jedi. We played with sends around the metal posts in the room and he got to fetch his Holee Roller for a while (trying to avoid those posts, but dang I have bad aim). We also went ahead and tried Ann's suggestion of throwing treats on the ground and then running off with the toy. I used hot dogs to try to up the appeal, but even with like seven hotdogs on the ground Jedi would leave before he got them all to chase me. Oh well, I got a little ahead, and he still enjoyed the game. We need to be careful in small spaces, though, because he kind of hit the wall a couple of times...
Next week we have a second (basics) class starting up, so it will be a longer night. It was nice to come home a little earlier this week. Jedi got a light dinner in his crate tonight since he'd eaten most of his food during class tonight. He must have gotten caught up on his sleep today, because he's been going strong since we got home.
Jedi's puppy seminar wore him out, which had the added bonus of lingering into today! Last night Jedi finally crashed around 8:30. I let him stay out of the crate last night and he stayed on the bed for the most part. I had to call him back up once and then he stayed put. We had a thunderstorm pass through around 4 a.m. and when I woke up Jedi was still on the bed. He wasn't on the bed anymore when I woke up around 6:20. When he came back up onto the bed his feet were wet, so it would appear he let himself outside. Since today was a work from home day I was super lazy and we stayed in bed until 7:00. Jedi did a good job at learning to cuddle in bed.
Inspired by all of the balance and conditioning work we did as part of the seminar, Jedi and I went downstairs to play with FitPaws equipment for his breakfast today. We played with the paw pods for this entire session. I started out with just two of them and focused on the front end, then added two more and mostly focused on the hind end. Jedi was very actively offering touches, but he was all over the place and perhaps moving too much for this exercise. I rewarded pretty much everything, though, and there were several times where he managed both hind feet on different pods. When trying to get all four feet on separate pods he would often share the same pod with a front/hind foot set. He'll get there.
We had a super quiet morning. Jedi was ready for his nap not long after breakfast. I'd say he was down for the count by 8:00, which is almost unheard of for him. He didn't move much until around lunchtime when I took everyone outside to clean up the yard. Jedi's lunch was going to have to wait, though, because today I was taking my dad out to lunch to make up for missing Father's Day yesterday since I was gallivanting around with Jedi. Jedi got to hangout in his crate while I was out.
After everyone left for the night I spent some time playing with Jedi. We played with sends around the metal posts in the room and he got to fetch his Holee Roller for a while (trying to avoid those posts, but dang I have bad aim). We also went ahead and tried Ann's suggestion of throwing treats on the ground and then running off with the toy. I used hot dogs to try to up the appeal, but even with like seven hotdogs on the ground Jedi would leave before he got them all to chase me. Oh well, I got a little ahead, and he still enjoyed the game. We need to be careful in small spaces, though, because he kind of hit the wall a couple of times...
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