Puppy School Continues

Neko and I have maintained a great routine the past few weeks and I think it's really helping her "settle" (my favorite command to date - it's like "bunk" for service dogs, but I didn't like the word so I changed it: basically means go find a place to lie down and be quiet for a while).  We get up (early) and go for a run.  Don't worry - I'm not abusing her puppy-bones!  Since I can't run far enough to do any damage to her, I'm the perfect running companion.  Then she (and I) have a little breakfast and head to work.  She's now able to maintain a calm, settled affect for most of the work day (with only an occasional visit to "time out" in her office crate).

Every day at lunch rain- (I take her alone) or -shine (my coworker @cspringer3 helps out a lot) I take her for a walk/run in the field at SCC.  She loves chasing birds and I usually bring a ball or something to work on retrieving.  Really it's just a chance for her to run it all out so she can be a good girl in the afternoon.

Then, after work, it's off to the park!  Again, I've been taking her rain-or-shine.  It just makes life at home so much better if she gets a chance to run and be a dog for at least 30 mins in the afternoons.  I've also been taking her to the "big park" at Magnusen to try to get her used to the water (I'm still hopeful that she'll learn to swim and love to swim this summer).  Usually she finds a few fellow Sporting Dogs to play with and we work on some long recalls and "watch me" while at the park.  She's really been doing well with the recall.  I'm still impressed by how trainable and attentive my Gordon Setter puppy is!

One day a week, after park-time, we go to school.  Neko's service dog trainer had a family emergency so she's been taking Intermediate Obedience from Sound Animal and they're great with her!  Her test is next week and I don't think she's going to pass (because it's an off-leash obstacle course and she's just too distractible...you never know, stay tuned for the full report) so I preemptively re-enrolled her in Intermediate again.  I figure that once Mary is back, Neko could potentially be taking some task training or "party tricks" from her and remain in Obedience with Jeff - can't hurt to go to school 2 nights per week!  Personally, I love school nights - I come home with a tired, thoughtful puppy who just wants dinner and her bed.  It rocks.

Do I need to raise my hand to answer a question?