I've been doing little bits and bobs with Luna in the last week. Yesterday, we had our first lesson of hand targeting and today was our second go. I started introducing the target in different positions. She's such a funny little thing
She is looking good! A little less tank like already. Is she rubbing her eyes at all? I just ask because she seems to have pale patches around her eyes. Could just be the light, but Charlie (or any Choccie) gets this if they rub their eyes and remove the delicate fur surround the eye (which is very easy to do). You don't see this on other colours (but I'm sure they rub their eyes just the same). Of course, could be her fur is still growing!
She looks really pale around the eyes in photos and video, but far less so in real life. She doesn't rub her eyes, but the lids are a little loose. I don't think it's anything to worry about at this stage, just she needs to grow into them. Her eyes are a bit more watery than Willow's were at this age, especially when she's tired, but they don't seem to be irritated at all. The "tankness" comes and goes. She's changing very rapidly. She loves a good sit in the garden to watch the world go by, and at the moment when she does this, her head looks far too small for her body from the back! She's massive compared to this time last week. She can now reach the cleaning stuff I had put on top of her crate. Hehe, yup! Turkey frankfurter
Charlie's were like that - they very much improved with age. Although they are not perfect even now, and I do fuss a bit with keeping his eyes clean. Betsy's sire didn't have good eyelids (although not terrible, see much worse on Labradors every day). Thankfully, she didn't inherited these, and has good tight eyes.
Ah, she's lovely! You're very brave to have your hair loose around your shoulders within reach of puppy teeth!
It's normally up in a bun, or fashioned into a tug-toy (otherwise known as a plait). But I'd just got up and hadn't had my shower at this point She's not too bad. She has her devil child moments, but in general, her biting is pretty gentle.
Very fun to watch! Target is one of my favourite things to teach. Luna looks so wonderful and is already so much bigger. I'm amazed by how big Lab puppies are at this age. I'm getting used to it, but it's still really curious to me how a dog who ends up being so much lighter in weight than a Rottweiler when full grown is so much BIGGER as a puppy. One of those (very cute) mysteries of dogdom, I guess!
She is really doing well! Love her enthusiasm and focus on you. Choked on my snowball when I read.. "It's normally up in a bun, or fashioned into a tug-toy (otherwise known as a plait). But I'd just got up and hadn't had my shower at this point "
Well, she's a baby puppy and I'm not pushing her, just a couple of sessions a day, but so much to learn!! She's probably a bit less focussed than Willow at the same age, but I'm also less desperate to get stuck in to everything as I was with my first pup. There's plenty of time
Well, I've not updated this in a while! We've been steadily working on things over the last two and a half months, although obviously a large percentage of my time in the early days was spent with toilet training, bite inhibition and interactions between Luna and the adults. So, here we are now, at four and a half months. Toilet training Nearly there at last! Very occasional accidents inside, when I've misinterpreted her signals. Still getting up at least once a night, but that's a physical maturity issue, I'm sure, which will sort itself out in time. Biting Very little biting now. The odd nip of a calf if I "neglect" her for too long on a walk. Note: don't ignore the puppy! She plays "bitey-face" with my open hand really nicely, with no contact. Husbandry Every day, I do DS work with eye drops and brush her teeth (well, I let her chew on my rubber finger brush at the moment, because she's teething and I don't want to cause her any pain). A couple of times a week, I trim her nails, just with clippers for now, but I want to introduce the Dremel again soon. We've done some work on a chin rest, but I want to extend that to her having her chin in my lap rather than in my hand, as it's more convenient to have both hands free. Ignoring people Mostly very good. She's great when there are multiple people and tends to be quite diffident towards them, until I tell her "say hi", at which point she turns into a wriggly mess. She struggles more when it's a single person she's met before, so that's something to work on. Ignoring other dogs A work in progress. We don't get a lot of opportunity to practice. A few times a week, I take her down the street to where the Pyrenean is, hurling himself against his gate to get to us. She's starting to check herself and look towards me before trying to pull towards him. If I do focus exercises in front of him, she quickly responds. Other dogs on the street tend to be off lead (despite the law) and they're impossible to work with, since they'll come over to us. Door etiquette I introduced this quite late with W&S and it's not brilliant at times, so wanted to address it immediately with Luna. I want her to learn not to go through an open door until told to, not for any outdated ideas of "pack", but because it's potentially dangerous, not to mention just bloomin' annoying, for a dog to push through the slightest crack in a door ahead of you. She's generalising this pretty well, and waits both outside and inside the lift and at all sorts of other doors for me to release her to go through. She struggles with walking out of our apartment door when she's excited to go for a walk, so I have to work on that. Free stack We're getting there. She is defaulting to standing a lot better at the back now. I've been using a mirror to check how she looks from the side - it's surprisingly difficult to tell how square she is from above. I'm sure the pros do it, but no chance for me! Adding duration to her stand (only a handful of seconds for now) and adding a release cue. Also started people stroking her while she remains standing still - not easy for a Lab puppy who thinks everyone is her friend! Sit/stay Her sit is good to a visual or verbal cue with minimal distractions. Happy to do it around people, and once I have her focus, around other dogs. I've been adding duration and distance slowly. Eight paces away is our maximum for now. This is fine if I step backwards, but she struggles if I turn my back on her, so I'm introducing that slowly. I am introducing movement - waving my arms, standing on one leg, star jumps, spinning in a circle, running on the spot. Again, slowly, slowly. Recall It's hard to do the early stages of Total Recall when you have other dogs in the house! So, I'm working on it out and about by blowing my whistle when she's running towards me on walks, with or without the other two. We also play short sessions of ping pong recall a few times a week, which she LOVES and this has massively speeded her up. I can't do too much because I don't want to stress her joints, but we play a few reps every few days. Walking to heel She's wonderful at walking to heel, on and off lead - for now! Hardly any lead pulling; I expect a tiny bit as we approach places where she knows she will be let off lead. I could counter this by keeping her on the lead more often at those places, but it's not very practical (for example, where there are snow banks to clamber over), so I prefer to have her learn to control her impulse to pull, because that will stand her in good stead in the future. I have started to introduce an automatic sit at heel when I stop walking. I was a bit concerned this might cause issues in the show ring, but there's no reason why it should interfere with my "stand" cue. I also have a different way of holding the (also different) lead when she's in show mode, so she should take all of that on board as her cue for behaviour. Targeting a post This is fairly new. I introduced the post inside a while back, but she was more interested in chewing it than touching it with her nose, so we've had to go very slowly with that stage, to shape a nose touch rather than picking it up and running off with it! She's pretty good with this now, unless she's over excited, so I've started introducing distance. Only a few feet for now, and always in a straight line in front of her. Complexity - added distance, multiple posts, direction - will come much later. Hunt whistle Very basic stuff - I throw a treat on the ground and, while she's distracted, throw another one so she doesn't see it. Then tell her to "find it" (she already understands this means to put her nose on the ground) and blow my hunt whistle when she's on top of it. Stop whistle Only done a tiny bit of this, and obviously only when she's completely focussed on me. Still, she has a far snappier sit than the older ones sometimes do! Retrieving Her early days with me showed that she has a very strong natural retrieving instinct. I was warned by both @JulieT and my breeder to not do too much, because it would be very easy to turn her into a loopy retrieving monster, so I've done very, very little recently - and have been kept busy with other things, anyway! I tried a little inside the other day and she wasn't that keen to play, so I was a bit concerned that I'd broken her somehow. So I did a little bit of puppy switch retrieve with her and found out that she's really not broken at all In hindsight, I think she may have been put off at home by having the other dogs watching what she was doing. She has a great delivery to hand most of the time, too, that I want to nurture. It's something I have to keep brushing up on with W&S, so I'm keen to keep Luna's natural delivery as strong as possible. Steadiness I've only done a bit of this - restraining her as I throw a toy or ball and then releasing her with "get it". But, now her sit/stay is strengthening, I had a play this morning with using a dummy ball to train it off lead. So, I put her in a sit and then placed the dummy ball (that she's excited by) on the floor in front of her, picking it up if she went to grab it. She quickly got the idea she couldn't get it. Moved on to dropping the ball from a few inches off the ground to make it more distracting, and progressed to dropping it from my hand as I was standing. Very early days, but all promising stuff. Phew! It seems we've done quite a lot now I've written it all out! She absolutely adores her training games and is constantly "asking" me for things to do when we're together. She's such a lovely little (not so little) thing
Here's a bit of video from one of our walks. At least one walk a day is a training walk - that is, we play training games for almost the entire duration. It really wears her out, she loves it, and it makes her very focussed on me.
Have only had time at the present to watch a wee bit of this video and very impressed, I look forward to watching the rest later in the day. Not sure I like the 'steep drop' of the land to the right of you
Wow! Hasn't Luna come far in such a short space of time. She is looking so good too, obviously thriving in the Andorra air. I do like how keen she is, especially at one point she is a fraction off in her marking then...pounce! Benson just can't wait to see her again...but..how old will she be in May?
She will be six and a half months when we see you next ... and hopefully not thinking about coming into season!!
Ahh! Keep thinking she will be older I reckon she will have her season at 8 months...ought to have a sweepstake!
