Tuesday 16 December 2014

Chook 5 months

A LOT has changed about the C-man in the last month:
  • His legs are twice as long;
  • He is a lot more motivated (to eat at least, and to train);
  • He has discovered that he can actually use his back legs, and that he has some degree of coordination control;
  • He now has some ability to rest quietly when required;
  • He is house-trained (except when nobody notices his requests for transport down the steep stairs to the back door which are still not possible for him to negotiate alone);
  • Sleeps all night (like a dream!!!!! :) :) :))
  • The bottoms of lady dogs start to be very interesting
I would love to be able to say "and the barking is gone!" but it hasn't. At least it is MUCH better than it was. It is still a bit of a struggle to train at home because of it. At first I thought "fine I'll just train high-excitement things somewhere else" but that isn't very practical and so the project continues.

Thanks to his new-found control of body parts we have been doing a lot of work to try and develop his movement, and it has come a long way in a short time! Stays have been a theme of this month and the concept is starting to sink in.

My main crime is my neglect of training him to walk nice on a lead. He works fine in a show lead but put him in a harness and, well, the effect of long uninhibited park and beach walks can be seen :). I got him a martingale collar dedicated to project "walk nice" and I think that needs to be the theme for next month.