So I usually report funny things in my blog but today I am a bit under the weather and I've been having trouble writing for a few days anyways. So we're just going to go with it today. I am so glad we enrolled in the dog training class. Puppies are so much work and there are so many excellent strategies the trainer knows that I would never think about trying. One is for bite inhibition, holding binaca in your hand, when your puppy bites down on your hand, you give him a spritz. Doesn't hurt them but they don't like the taste so they associate biting you with bad taste.... Another is water and vinegar in a spray bottle. Wally was barking in the kitchen at us a lot, he gets very excited about all the smells while we're cooking. To control this we give him a squirt and say AHHHGGG!!! when he barks. He is doing that much less now.
Today on our walk I also figured out when Wally started going crazy and getting to the stage of wanting to bite and tug on my pants, I put him the "listening" position which is his bum on my feet and my arms around his chest. I then pet his ear and scratch his little puppy chest and he calms down a bit. He also seemed to start realizing that acting that way results in him having to sit there like that and he did not act that way the rest of our walk. Maybe there's hope yet? We're for sure signing up for the next round of training.
Carissa and Wally are struggling in their relationship. She is a kid in his eyes and should be a built in playmate. He just can't understand why sometimes she just doesn't want to play. He gets very upset with her. Then she gets upset with him and it all goes downhill from there. They'll figure things out though. I know we're going to miss the puppy in him when he's grown up but I am looking forward to our canine good citizen. :-)
