I love training puppies. I love how quickly they learn, such little sponges just absorbing tons of information. I love how light hearted and silly they are, always viewing everything as one big game. My hope is that with Gypsy, I guide her in such a way that she seems life as a big game, albeit one with some rules, forever. She's such a happy spirit, I never want to squish her joie de vivre.
Gyps has been so much fun to train this past week. She's finally got some food motivation, though still not nearly as much as for toys. But enough to work with a bit. I've been doing tons of shaping with her and she's learned to offer new behaviors and try old ones. We've worked a ton on body awareness: backing up, 4 feet in a box (that is getting progressively smaller), wobble board work, left and rights, perch work, dyna disc work and the start of weaving between my legs. Everything comes so quick for her, which is good since I am keeping sessions super short. There's a lot more playing during our shaping sessions than actual training and that works well to keep her enthusiasm up.
One thing I am struggling with a bit is retrieving. Gyps loves to take the toy and run off by herself. It's funny because when she brings it back, I always tug like a fiend with her and she loves it. But she hasn't associated retrieving the toy to me and tugging. She goes after the toy, takes it to a good spot, drops it and comes back to me without it! So I am only working on retrieving in small spaces and I'll have to put a toy on a leash eventually. Rave was such a natural retriever as a pup that this surprises me a bit. But we'll get it eventually!!
We continue to work on her recall. It's great without distractions, but with distractions is another story. I am sure this will be an ongoing process for my little girl.
Her socialization is picture perfect at this point. She loves all people---any color, race, gender, or size. She's not afraid of moving things---bikes, cars, garbage cans, whatever. She's not afraid of things moving under her, happily going in the elevator and walking on odd surfaces. She's not sound sensitive or motion reactive. She's perfect in her greetings with new dogs. She loves going new places and being a little explorer. Since we travel a lot, it's important for me to have a dog that we can take anywhere and put in different situations without any concern. She's already been on two big road trips and handled them like a champ. I absolutely LOVE who she is.
The one area that I am not happy about is her tolerance for having her nails trimmed. Oh boy is she bad! You'd think I was amputating her leg!!! I find it so interesting since I worked so hard on that while the pups were growing here. But clearly she's forgotten all of that already! Rave was pretty bad as a pup, and is still my wiggliest dog for nail trims, but Gyps takes it to a whole new level. And since her food motivation isn't great, it's hard to work on it. I even took out raw tripe last week for her nails and she wouldn't touch it.
But as it goes with dogs, there's always something to work on and if doing her nails is the least of my concerns, then we're golden!
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