No new update on his health. We still have about a month until our next visit. He’s still on restricted activity with swimming 5 days a week and about 15 minutes of low-activity training walks and then some almost-no-activity training.
In many ways he acts like a much younger puppy. His style of play and interaction with me and towards other dogs seems more like a 5 or 6 month puppy. He’s also not had a lot of training – there has been a lot happening and combined with his activity restrictions, we aren’t usually able to get out in public at reasonable hours. Current weak training areas: walking in public (a huge surprise – he was so good!), calm around dogs, offered attention in busy environments, and settling. And we tried to do puppy level at the most recent rally trial – not good. He was adorable and happy and bouncy. But very unprepared and distracted.
Starting last week, we’ve been systematically working on various manners and training skills every day. One day we practiced in and out of the car in a calm and attentive way. And on another day we were in and out of the building. On Sunday while at the agility trial we worked on brushing. Here’s ones from a day where we worked on staying in the crate. It’s not the most exciting video and he can/should be able to do much harder tasks. It is proof of us training! I like how you can see his self control and understanding even though this isn’t something we’ve formally worked on in months.
We’ve had a few successes:
- He is crated in the new training building most of the time. Sometimes it’s hard with door noises (people/dogs coming in and out) or if other dogs enter the room and surprise him. But he’s doing much better, much faster than I anticipated. Unsurprisingly, he does best on the days when he gets exercise, his pain meds, and appropriate training/activities.
- Geese: This deserves it’s own post later. The short version – Viktor learned it’s fun to swim after geese. But after a few weeks of management and training, he has swam with 50+ geese without losing focus.
- Classes: He would benefit from weekly classes (or more often). We’ve done pieces of classes. When we do go to class, he is pretty wild at first but then settles in after about 10 minutes and does very, very well. I wish we were able to do more of this and find a nice routine to start class and to decrease the amount of wild time.