Day 11

Hops had another shaping lesson with the small crate this morning. It took about a minute of waiting before he made a motion toward the opening of the crate (he did offered other things). When he finally looked into the crate I clicked and rewarded inside the crate. I released him and after sitting for a moment he walked all the way in. He offered to go in a dozen times, the last 4 without offering a sit first and I said kennel as he was going in the last 4 times. Next I did a dozen short recalls. When he came I held my hand down by my leg and when he got to it I touched his collar then rewarded him with the other hand. I want him coming all the way in, not sitting out of reach, and I want collar grabs to be a good thing. Then we did a dozen position changes, saying the position, clicking and treat when he got into it. I ended with having him put his nose through a head collar 6 times. I am having it rest on his nose while he eats then removing it right away.

I had to leave Hops home for a few hours today. I exercised him before and gave him chewies and food toys in his X pen. Dillon was in the crate next to the pen. He seemed just fine when I returned and was of course very happy to see me! We ran around the backyard for a little while then I picked up the yard. He is getting much better about not trying to bite the pooper scooper! Yuck!

In several ways, Hops is showing himself not to be a Labrador ; ) The tally so far is, he stops eating when he is full, he stalks the other dogs, he is very smart, and he does not automatically return a tossed toy. On that note, Hops needs work on retrieving! He will always go get the toy, but sometimes he lays down and chews on it or runs away with it, neither of which I want. So I brought a rug into a hallway (so he would not slip) and blocked off the open end with me and a crate so he had nowhere to run with the toy. (Side story, when I started to move the rug Hops was a little unsure. His second thought however was that riding the rug while it was moving was fun!) I started by tugging and when he lost the toy I waited for a sit then said release and tossed the toy down the hall (about 8ft). He grabbed the toy and with a little coaxing (tapping on the ground, saying pup, pup, pup) he ran back down the hallway with the toy. I would like to say he brought it to me, but I am pretty sure he was just looking for a way out and I was close enough I was able to grab the toy : ) We played tug again then repeated. I intermixed live toy/dead toy so he retrieved different toys. He did about 15 retrieves, a few of which I think he actually brought the toy to me. I think we will need to work hard on this!

 

Hops had his first preschool class today! He was a confident puppy, not afraid at all when the bigger puppies came up to him to play. He easily got on all 5 of the different balance disks and did well with the impulse control exercise. He was happy to see both of his sisters, Love and Coleen and was extra happy to see Elinda: ) He had wonderful focus, being able to pay attention to me even with other puppies running around. Jeremiah was the one to work him through the exercises and he did wonderful for him as well. Fun class, we are looking forward to next week!

Hops ended the evening with a major play time with Rice. We though we might have a flattened puppy but Rice was *mostly* gentle and Hops is a tough puppy!