Day 28

The boys had to have eye drops put in their eyes last night so we turned it into a lesson for Hops. I held his head, opened his eye, put the dropper above his head then Jeremiah treated him. We did that a few times until he was very comfortable with then the last time I put one drop in and jackpotted him. He was calm the entire lesson and did not react to the drop so that was good!

Last light we had a visit from the blanket gremlin! We were a little scared! All of the sudden our puppy disappeared, the blankets in the crate started moving around, the crate itself started moving around and there were very strange noises coming from it! After awhile I decided to make an offering of a chewie to the blanket gremlin. The offering was accepted and out of the blankets crawled our sweet, innocent little puppy! Whew!

Hops went with me to an appointment this morning. He was so good, he chewed on his toys or did downs to get cookies for the entire 50 minutes. He is such an amazing puppy!

Hops stayed in the car while I taught a couple of lessons at work then practiced agility with Rice and Dillon. Then I brought Hops in and ran around the ring with him, playing tug and doing recalls. We did a few tables before we left and he is sill downing as soon as he gets on.

At home Hops had a shaping session with a balance disk and he offered front feet on, front feet on with back feet moving around, three feet on, four feet on, a sit on it and back feet on it. We then did some pushups, focusing on sit to sand to sit. He needed some reminds about stand but then was able to put it without a hand signal. He is definitely doing sits and downs without a hand signal. I then had him do sit says (no stay cue) with me moving away, dropping my hand, then releasing or returning to him to reward. I was able to walk about 8 feet away and he made few errors. I he practiced heel and side. He is so smart, he can get almost into heel on his own now. I am still giving him a hand signal most of the time though because I want him to get all he way in. Then he and Rice played and we were able to get a clip of Rice dragging Hops around by his toy!

Later we did a mat shaping session and a pushup session for the camera. For the mat, he went back to it every time after he ate his release cookie and most of the time he offered a down as soon as he reached the mat. I also did some it’s your choice with food at the end of the session. Next time we work on go to mat I think it is time to add a cue, he has the behavior down now!