SSD And The City: Day 5: Our first walk!

Today was a day full of firsts.

After breakfast we did a few more distraction exercises and just repeated simple commands like sit, right, etc.

The new skill we learned today was "push". This is what you say when you want the dog to open a door using the automatic button. We practiced a few times on different sizes and shapes. Troy is very good at doing this. He missed a few times but got right back up and did it again. He seems to like pushing the buttons for me and I've even noticed him looking at them before I push them myself. Right now I am only allowed to have Troy push 50% of the door buttons for me so that he is not over worked. This will increase later on.

PJ's Pets was very generous and donated some amazing goodie bags to us. It included a red kong, rope toy, slicker brush, toothpaste and toothbrushes, shampoo, and a nylabone!

Tonight Troy and I used the slicker brush that I got in the goodie bag. He seemed to like it more than he did last night which is a good sign. We also opened the nylabone and I put it in his crate for when he's bored. The rope toy seems to be a big hit but I'm worried about him swallowing pieces or chewing it apart so I only let him play with that for a few minutes. He doesn't seem to be a big chewer but I don't know him that well yet so just to be safe, I put it away and gave him the nylabone instead.

After practicing buttons and receiving our goodie bags, we did something really fun for the dogs. We took a walk outside around the parking lot! After that the trainers decided we would make it a little more challenging and we walked to the park behind the building. The park essentially surrounds the training centre so we walked through the park and all the way around the building. Troy and the rest of the dogs all did a fantastic job. Much better than most of us expected. There were a few dogs he has never seen before, cars and trucks, as well as a bunch of birds chirping in the bushes. He got a little distracted when he heard the birds but even I got distracted so I don't blame him!

Once we came back inside we practiced the "come" command. This is where one of the trainers take the dog and you go a few feet away then tell him to "come". Troy is getting very good at this and didn't have any trouble at all today.

Once we finished lunch we talked about dog food and we also talked about how to have strangers meet your dog. This is important as my mom is coming to visit and meet Troy on Sunday. That's just 2 days away. I can't believe how quickly this week has gone. In 14 more days we are already going home! We have so much more to learn before then.

The rest of the day was spent practicing "tugs" (he opened the fridge today for the first time), "push", and we are still working on "sit". This seems to be kind of tough for him. Especially while we are in my room after dinner. Right now he is happily sleeping in his crate. I kept the door open and he would keep looking at the door and gently pulling on his leash so I walked him over to the crate. He quickly walked in and started chewing away on his nylabone. I took the opportunity to finish today's blog post for you while he's having a little nap :)

Today we were also allowed to have the dog off-leash and take off the halti for about 30 minutes in our room. Troy did fairly well with this again today. He mainly slept beside the desk while I was on the computer and we played a little bit with the nylabone. He followed me into the bathroom as usual and then I put him back on his leash. Hopefully tomorrow we will increase this time again and maybe even have another playtime or snuggle session.

Here are a few pictures of Troy from today. Check back tomorrow to see what we are up to on our first weekend together!