Buggie Breakthrough

This have been quiet on the home front between sick puppies, a reduced class schedule, and no motivation! ;D

Since Bug has come to live with me we have been working on door manners. Buggie sees a door and thinks – “get through it as FAST as possible.” This has multiple potential negatives from Ike who is bowled over to Bug if he runs out to the street and gets hit by a car or a massive mean dog is walking down the street and attempts to eat him. And of course, waiting at doors is just plain ol’ good protocol for puppies.

So we have been working at this very hard. Bug now understands that he needs to “wait” in his car crate until I tell him “Okay.” I am able to open the crate and he does not MOVE until I tell him “okay.” Of course then he is like a spring being released and I had better have a good handle on the leash!

This week I have noticed that he has been giving me extraordinary eye contact when I ask him to “wait” as we leave the house. The eye contact is constant until I say “Okay” and release him. I was distracted this morning and forgot to ask him to “wait.” He did it anyway!!! I had to release him, even though I forgot to cue wait! Yay for the Bug!!!

Now we need to work on waiting while entering abodes. This is when Ike is the most likely to get run over and is unhappy/uncomfortable with Bug’s posturing. I have just been holding Bug but I need to make him think about it so that is the next step. And of course I will work on continuing to reinforce his current “wait” skill set.