Dog, 3 months
I came home from a study session at school, and I ate an apple. Mungo is always interested in his humans' food, so I bit off a chunk and set it on the floor for him. He sniffed it and left it alone. When I finished my apple, I picked up the piece on the floor to throw it away, and that was when he decided to take it from my hand. He trotted off to his mat in the other room with his prize. As I was logging on to the computer, Mungo would mouth the piece of apple, spit it out, pick it up again and chew on it some more. There are now three small fragments of apple on the mat. I don't think he swallowed any.
Obedience class has been... well, educational for me. Class starts at 8 AM on Saturdays, an uncomfortably early hour, and it's more difficult than I expected to keep up with the "homework." Without a common language or even a shared manner of thinking, it takes a lot of practice sessions to get an idea across, and it's easy to get frustrated and give up. Mungo's attention span for a practice session only lasts a couple of minutes or about ten commands in a row. At this point, he has learned Down, and Sit from the down position as well as from standing. We're working on Stand: so far he only stands to get a piece of food held in front of his nose, I don't think the verbal cue means anything to him. We're also working on Stay, trying to progress from 10 or 20 seconds at a time to 30 seconds and more by increments. I don't think he understands that concept yet either - if he happens not to move, that's only because he didn't feel like moving.
I've basically abandoned practicing Heel. The dog is supposed remain by my left side, face the same way I'm facing, and keep up with me as I move forward or turn left or right. Mungo sits by me readily, but I am the one repositioning myself so that he is on my left, and he prefers to face me, which seems natural: of course he wants to see what I'm doing. Physically manipulating his body to turn him to face the correct way generally results in him lying down. I've decided that I don't really care about Heel and to concentrate on the commands named above.
Crate training has been easier than I expected. At the trainer's suggestion, we've been feeding him in his crate, and now he goes in there when he expects his dinner. After we'd done this for three or four days, a maintenance worker came to the house to fix our windows. I told Mungo to go in the crate, and he went! I was so pleased. We have been closing him in at night for the past few nights, and that doesn't seem to bother him. The next step will be to confine him when we are absent from the house. I've only tried that once, for about an hour. All this is mostly in preparation for moving to my parents' house. Here, he doesn't really get into trouble other than sitting in my easy chair and appropriating articles of clothing we've carelessly left within reach (he doesn't chew them, he just lies on them), but they have a bit more stuff lying around and I don't trust him to be as good at their place.
I bought him a car harness, and after a little initial anxiety, he seems to tolerate the harness now. This past weekend we took him for a road trip. Mungo has never enjoyed car rides, and he hyperventilated almost the entire way. However, he didn't get motion sick or pee on the seat, so perhaps I can consider that a success. We spent the night in a motel, and while he didn't enter the travel crate we brought along for him, he was respectful of our things as well as the furniture at the motel, even when we left him alone in the room to go get dinner or breakfast. He was terribly relieved to see us when we returned from leaving him alone. It was pretty guilt-inducing. But judging from this experience, the big road trip in June seems feasible. I had thought I'd need to give him sedatives for the ride. Now I'm not sure if that's the best plan.
Obedience class has been... well, educational for me. Class starts at 8 AM on Saturdays, an uncomfortably early hour, and it's more difficult than I expected to keep up with the "homework." Without a common language or even a shared manner of thinking, it takes a lot of practice sessions to get an idea across, and it's easy to get frustrated and give up. Mungo's attention span for a practice session only lasts a couple of minutes or about ten commands in a row. At this point, he has learned Down, and Sit from the down position as well as from standing. We're working on Stand: so far he only stands to get a piece of food held in front of his nose, I don't think the verbal cue means anything to him. We're also working on Stay, trying to progress from 10 or 20 seconds at a time to 30 seconds and more by increments. I don't think he understands that concept yet either - if he happens not to move, that's only because he didn't feel like moving.
I've basically abandoned practicing Heel. The dog is supposed remain by my left side, face the same way I'm facing, and keep up with me as I move forward or turn left or right. Mungo sits by me readily, but I am the one repositioning myself so that he is on my left, and he prefers to face me, which seems natural: of course he wants to see what I'm doing. Physically manipulating his body to turn him to face the correct way generally results in him lying down. I've decided that I don't really care about Heel and to concentrate on the commands named above.
Crate training has been easier than I expected. At the trainer's suggestion, we've been feeding him in his crate, and now he goes in there when he expects his dinner. After we'd done this for three or four days, a maintenance worker came to the house to fix our windows. I told Mungo to go in the crate, and he went! I was so pleased. We have been closing him in at night for the past few nights, and that doesn't seem to bother him. The next step will be to confine him when we are absent from the house. I've only tried that once, for about an hour. All this is mostly in preparation for moving to my parents' house. Here, he doesn't really get into trouble other than sitting in my easy chair and appropriating articles of clothing we've carelessly left within reach (he doesn't chew them, he just lies on them), but they have a bit more stuff lying around and I don't trust him to be as good at their place.
I bought him a car harness, and after a little initial anxiety, he seems to tolerate the harness now. This past weekend we took him for a road trip. Mungo has never enjoyed car rides, and he hyperventilated almost the entire way. However, he didn't get motion sick or pee on the seat, so perhaps I can consider that a success. We spent the night in a motel, and while he didn't enter the travel crate we brought along for him, he was respectful of our things as well as the furniture at the motel, even when we left him alone in the room to go get dinner or breakfast. He was terribly relieved to see us when we returned from leaving him alone. It was pretty guilt-inducing. But judging from this experience, the big road trip in June seems feasible. I had thought I'd need to give him sedatives for the ride. Now I'm not sure if that's the best plan.