12 Weeks!

Well – this is the week I’ve been waiting for. 12 weeks old! We may be nearing the end of the socialization window – I tried to get in as many of the things as possible from our to-do list. We still have a few more I would like to accomplish soon.

This week we did several visits to the vet for fun and training and vaccination updates. During our fun visits we would play fetch and training in the waiting room. On one of the visits a cat came out for the dropped treats and we were able to do recalls and walking past.

We did puppy class three times this week (twice in one day!).  That was a lot of fun! We did walking which we haven’t practice, I saw him begin to understand the “Get it” cue and he still settles  so nicely while waiting for our turn. He’s much more patient than Griffin was at that age (or now).  The white spot on his nose had almost faded away but now it’s coming back! It’s not visible in any of these pictures.

Informal Training:

He’s learned to body slam the gate so I’ll have to work on gate manners in a formal setting this week. We’ve done casual leash walks but will need formal training there too. Come when called has gone well until this week – a few times he didn’t come or was too distracted so that means even more practice and upping the rewards sometimes. His house manners and out in public are great and he really loved cuddling with all the techs at the vet’s office yesterday – I love his attitude towards other people.

One of the things I’ve done with him is an informal “minimal crating” experiment. That deserves it’s own post soon – but we will be needing to do some additional crate/xpen training so that he can be a better demo dog in classes.

Formal Training:

We started doing some mini sequences and adding in a few cues. I did attempt some cue discrimination that was successful – I don’t know how much he consciously understands that yet. We learned a right finish and go around a cone.

In the Next Week:

We’ll be doing a few more puppy classes.  I’m extra excited to work on his crate/pen because a new PetTutor arrived – I’ve had the great opportunity to use one of the test models for the last year – but this one should be even better! We’ll do more trips out in public. If we have any free hours when the temperature is above freezing I do want to introduce him to tracking – as much as it pains me to lure I think I’ll try the traditional method of food-in-footsteps. I want to work on his pivoting and maybe start heeling. We definitely need to work on staying too.  There’s so much to do and not enough time!  He should probably learn to wear a collar?

And I think we have a name – Viktor.