Friday, April 15, 2011

Goals

The Ricardos go to their 2nd puppy class this weekend.

We've been practicing a few things this week- mainly "sit" and "down".  Ricky can do both pretty much every time I give him the hand signal.  Lucy can do it when she feels like it, but she gets more easily distracted so it may take her a little longer.
Lucy's eager to learn...and chase butterflies, eat plants, dig in the dirt, crawl around under the table, roll on her belly, etc.
Ricky gets tons of kibbles and kisses for being such a good boy.  Notice the red on his paw...that's my lipstick!
But it's all good.

It's so fun!  I've never really wanted to train a dog before.  But after meeting Jasper, and seeing all the cool tricks he can do, I'm feeling really inspired.  His owner, Ashley, is giving me lots of tips with my puppies.  And what I love most about it, it's all positive and fun
Jasper's showing Ricky and Lucy the ropes on how to be great citizens.
I don't know who came up with the crazy idea that dog training should start at 6 months.  I know now that that's wrong!  It should start as soon as you get them.  Our training sessions are very brief- about 2 minutes!  But we do them through out the day, and man oh man, are my puppies learning fast!

In a few months, I expect we'll be doing a dance routine similar to this one I'm posting below.

3 comments:

pandaparade said...

Good for you for doing many short sessions a day! Your puppies will be so smart! That salsa routine is adorable. This is one of my favortites http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGq1641reC8

Unknown said...

It's indigenous to this breed to want to please its human. You'll find that the more you work with them, the more compliant they'll be. I only knew Zoe and Scout via your blog, but the Ricardos are going to be AWESOME pooches!

Laurie said...

I so agree with you about training young! By the time Wilbur was 4 months old, he knew all of his basic commands, and I wanted to move on to formal obedience...but I had to wait till he was six months old. Very frustrating!

So...are you considering a career in freestyle with Lucy and Ricky?