Puppy Adventures

(Tonight's post comes to you courtesy of inclement weather causing the cancellation of tomorrow's classes, which means no homework to finish right now!)

Once a month the raisers and Canine Companions puppies in my are get together.  We now have three puppies on program in my area (insert happy squeals).  November's meet-up took place at our outdoor mall, and was exciting because it was our newest puppy, Hardy's, first time with us.

Hardy, with Young in the back

We practiced calm greeting, settling, and took a walk -- stopping periodically to work on our skills: from "sit," to "jump," and everything in between.

Left to right: Moray, Hardy, and Young

The puppies were at three months, seven months, and eleven months, and seeing the differences in each stage side by side was so much fun.  I will admit that I had the "bad boy" for the evening.  Young is mature enough to know it was working time, Hardy is young enough to be just a little aloof, and my still-unaltered tween was just a little on the crazy side.  In his defense, Moray tries so very hard to be a good boy, listen, and keep his attention on me.  He self-corrects himself when he breaks his "sit" command, and those eyes just flash back and forth from my face, to the others, to the treat pouch on my hip.  So precious!  Even at his adolescent stage, he still has such a sweet innocence that I adore.  As if he doesn't realize he has the option to disobey me yet.  We shall see how long that lasts!

I love our mini Canine Companions group and the support and camaraderie that come with it!

We tried putting them all on the bench.  I told you I had the bad boy...

Fall Fun

Moray has participated in many things in the last few weeks.  Two weeks ago the day was spent doing all things Fall related.  First up was the corn maze!  Moray did very well.  He is really starting to show me just how solid he is becoming.  He walked very nicely on his leash even when I knew he wanted to check things out at his pace, not mine.  He was also very brave and went up stairs to a platform that was all wire, so you could see straight to the ground. 

Some time was spent admiring the pumpkins and fall displays at the farmer's market just next door.

 

That night Moray attended his very first movie.  I am not quite sure what I was thinking when I decided to bring him to an over two-hour film for his first time, but he did fantastic and after the first ten minutes of watching the screen, fell promptly asleep for the whole thing.  The best part: he didn't show any sensitivity to the noise!  Something we have been working on desensitizing to for a while.

The next morning was puppy class, and then a trip to a fall festival at a church in the city.  It was not all that exciting -- just working around people, trying to be calm for greeting, and oh!  A very pink fire truck that was in need of an extra cute model!

T Minus 5 Days

The countdown for Lil' Mr. Moray's arrival is on.  Friday at 8:50am is the scheduled time of his plane landing at our city's airport. 

I have been trying to warn Dante that he is about to be de-throned.  Hehehe!  I think he is going to love having a little brother for a few months!  

Preparations for Moray are almost through.  Last week I was on a trip with my church youth group, and my mom picked up a bag of puppy food, and a couple other things.  Yesterday, Dante had puppy class (here, we pause for a picture from yesterday's class).

CCI puppies Young and Dante waiting for instruction on what to do next.

Since we attend class at a pet store, we had Moray's I.D. tag made and picked up a few more baby puppy toys.  Our Puppy Program Manager said Moray's paperwork and puppy starter kit are in the mail, so aside from a few things that have to be puppy-proofed, I think we are set.  I have started reviewing the puppy raising manual, and it is a good refresher.  

That awesome moment when toys you were going to buy anyways are on sale...

Because sometimes I have to flip through the manual just to find this cartoon to reassure myself that Dante is not the only one...

  I am sure many of you are curious to how the blog is going to be handled.  First of all, yes, I am going to continue blogging about raising Dante, and now Moray.  This leads to some inevitable changes as "Days with Dante" is a little too, umm... Dante specific (something I should have thought about last year).  After many going backs between the pro's and con's, I have decided to keep everything on one blog.  While there will be some design changes going on over the next little while, our URL (www.dayswithdante.blogspot.com) will remain the same.  That is our PSA for the day, so just bear with us if things are a little funky in the next week or so.  ;-)

I think you can probably tell the excitement level over here is going up day by day.  Thankfully, I'm channeling that into extra training time with Dante, working on cementing his last couple commands, and rereading some good puppy training material :-)  Only five more days until there will be THREE CCI puppies in this town!

Puppy Sitting

Last week, I had the opportunity to puppy sit another Canine Companions puppy.  Young is the only other CCI puppy in my area, and a super cute four month old 3/4 lab/golden cross (Dante is a 3/4 golden cross).  

Dante and Young got along great.  The only problem was getting them to stop playing!  

They played so hard on Thursday when Young arrived, that Dante was so exhausted on Friday, and for a while I thought he was sick.  Hehe!  I was so impressed with how Dante handled Young "invading" his space and toys.  He shared so well, and was so gentle with Young.  He did show some jealousy over my attention, but got over that in the first day.

Young is such a sweetie!  Maybe having a teenager in Dante really showed the contrast, but I had almost forgotten how fresh little puppies are!  There was no "Whatcha gonna do about it if I don't?" attitude; just soaking up everything new and really wanting your approval and attention.  So innocent.  Don't get me wrong, while Dante has some issues we are working on, I wouldn't trade his spunk in for the world. :-)

I had a very busy week and weekend with school and such, so we spent most of the time at home.  But Young did get to come to the park and watch my tennis lesson.  My mom took him for a short walk and then to sit and watch.  It is so much fun to watch them take in new surroundings!

We had a great time with Young, and poor Dante was mopey all day yesterday when he left.  I keep telling him that he will see him at puppy class on Saturday, and I think he is getting over it.  ;-)  

Puppy Class

(This is LONG.  I debated weather or not to post all of this, but decided it was best to be honest about it. So. . .)

I have not written much about Dante's puppy classes.  Being in an area where I am the only raiser has been a little challenging.  I really miss not having a group, especially having such a great group with GEB before I moved.  Now don't get me wrong, I have great support from our Puppy Program Manager and always get my questions answered, and I have found great support through all of you fellow puppy raiser bloggers as well.  There are very few organizations that would allow me to raise without a group here, so I am so, so thankful for CCI, and truly am grateful to be part of such an amazing organization.  But it is still hard at times not to have someone face-to-face.

We have attended three different puppy classes with Dante over the last few months.  We tried to avoid having to go to a pet store, so the first two were private classes.  The first trainer was good, but Dante ended up being the only puppy in the class.  And even though the trainer's philosophy was consistent with CCI, he didn't really know what to do with us since we did things slightly different, and being the only ones there was hard for a few reasons.  First, it didn't give Dante any socialization, and second, it didn't help us trying to just handle our differences quietly.  So, I think it was mutual that we moved on.

The second class was pretty messy.  My mom and I set it up to observe a class before we signed up.  The class that we saw was pretty good, so we signed Dante up, making sure to explain how we do things to the instructor to make sure she was comfortable with us.  The information we got on the class was vague at best, but we didn't think much of it.  It turned out that they did absolutely NO positive reinforcement.  It was not clear at all when we signed up.  You don't know how hard it was to watch the other owners yank and correct their pups into position, and not say anything.  Those poor pups had no idea what was expected of them.  So, we made it through the class trying our best to work Dante quietly, and decided to stick it out because Dante did need the socialization with other puppies, but knew that signing up for another one was not an option.

We spent a couple weeks trying to avoid going to Petco.  Its a long story about that.  But anyways.  We met with the trainer at Petco in our neighboring town, and LOVE him.  He is a former K9 police officer and his philosophy is spot on with CCI.  It has been so refreshing to go to a class where I actually take really good information home, and not just socialization for Dante.  

Dante graduated from his first class there last week.  We always get there early to get Dante settled and ready to work on time.  This week there was a couple with two Great Danes.  I know they are huge, but had never met one in person.  Oh my, I am glad they were so well behaved! ;-)  We decided to let Dante greet the older one (the other was a newly rescued puppy and a little rambunctious).  The Great Dane was so gentle and good with Dante!

Getting ready to greet:

Bragging moment: D's focus on me :-)

I LOVE when other pet owners initiate good, polite greeting where both pups have high standards of behavior :-)

Being our last week, we had a lot of fun with an obstacle course to work through.

Loose leash walking through the cones:

Dante is not a huge fan of the tunnel:

But he made it through (with lots of treats)!

One of the other puppies, Bandit's, mom is a pastry chef and made amazing treats for the puppies:

I only let Dante have a small one and took the one with his name home (which he has been getting little pieces of it everyday for the last week).

"Please release me!!!"

"I don't know how much longer I can 'wait'!"

We ended with some playtime with Bandit  The first two weeks Bandit was really hesitant about Dante, but they have grown to love each other and play really nicely.

So thankful for a such a great class for Dante!