Lots of New Places...

I brought Savvy, Catcher, Oliver, JJ, and Fly to Gemini today to play upstairs. They start puppy class tomorrow and I wanted to be sure they had seen the upstairs play room and were comfortable with it before all the other dogs were there. They did awesome! They had no fears whasoever and explored every inch of the room. After a few minutes I went downstairs and borrowed Zoey. I was a little worried that Fly might be protective of the puppies and not let Zoey in the room. However it proved the opposite was true. Fly totally forgot about the puppies and went into zoomies all over the room with Zoey. The two of them were beside themselves to see one another and actually get to play. It made me so happy that neither of them forgot the other because it's been a good 5 months since they've really had the chance to play hard. They've seen each other a few times, but while Fly was pregnant and had the pups I didn't allow her to play.

Along with being great with Fly, Zoey once again proved how awesome she is and played beautifully with the puppies! She rolled right over with them and let everyone sniff her and run all over her.

After playing for a good hour we packed up the gang and headed to Pethingz! where Savvy and Oliver got to go in and see Craig and Tom. Both of them did very well and I'm very happy with that. While we were waiting to pay for everything we bought Mom poked me and pointed to the doorway where I saw a little Aussie looking at me...it was Deja and Nancy! I wish I had the boys with me at that point so they could play in the store, but they were already in the car.

Tonight I trained Savvy some more and he did awesome, again! I didn't need to charge the clicker, as soon as we were in the living room he sat in front of me! No luring, nothing, he simply offered the behavior and continued to offer it about 20 times. Then we worked on down, and hand targeting! He did very well with both. Then I started to work on targeting to the mat. He did it a couple times, but either got stuck or bored because he just curled up and went to sleep. So I baited him to wake him up and as soon as he touched the mat I clicked, fed, and released him. I can't believe how easily he's catching on to everything. I think it's a combination of a lot of things that is making him so mch easier than Fly to train for puppy class. Here are my thoughts:
1) I'm actually working with him
2) He's wicked smart (not that Fly isn't, but she didn't really want to work for me as a pup)
3) He's wicked food and toy motivated
4) I'm a better/more experienced trainer than I was when Fly was a pup
5) I've had a ton of practice AIT'ing for Level 1 so I know to wait them out and am not making rookie mistakes
6) I love shaping and think it's the greatest way of teaching everything!

Anyways, I've got new pictures and videos but I have to edit and then upload them. Hopefully I will get that done soon so I can spruce up this blog with some pics of the little devil!