Overheard in public tonight: “Wow! That dog’s only ten weeks old and it already knows sit on a hand signal!”
Well, actually, we started with the hand signal, but I didn’t mention that. I did, however, go on to demonstrate a down with a hand signal, a palm touch, a short stay, and a little heeling. What can I say, I’m a sucker for showing off. 😉
We did some rag play in the open, too, which was very distracting. She only lost concentration once, though. Nor did my slapping my legs, whacking a magazine on the floor beside her, or anything else cause her to loosen her grip. What a little crocodile.
Her crate screaming is almost entirely gone; it appears briefly only when she’s put into the crate before she considered herself fully exercised. But even then it lasts only a minute or two, instead of the nearly three hours that she would clock before.
She’s developing into something of an escape artist. I’m sleeping at my parents’ as we’re trying to get a few necessities (toilet? sink?) installed at our new place, and yesterday we returned home to find Laev happily romping with their two rescue Dobes. Fortunately, both of them like Laev, but long scrutiny of the pen could reveal no puppy exit. The edges were wired more tightly and we tried again today while I ran some errands, only to find that she’d escaped once more. I couldn’t make anything flex more than an inch or so, and I consider myself stronger than a 10 week pup!
Finally my mother decided that Laev must be bracing herself against the little dog house and using the leverage to squeeze herself — painfully, I’m sure — through a narrow gap. Moving the dog house indeed solved the problem, but wow. Determined little bugger!
I thought we were getting this housetraining thing, but tonight was really bad. My fault for not supervising the puppy directly, but leaving her with others, but apparently she pooped in my parents’ house. Twice. Messily. My husband called with news that I was in trouble, and I wasn’t even the one responsible! As soon as I’m done posting this, I’m going to clean up. /sigh/
She’s got the verbal “sit” well enough, but for some reason we’re sticking on “down.” She just doesn’t seem to connect the word with the action, though she’s very reliable on the hand signal. Hm.
