Sulley's been in our family for 5 weeks now. He's right around 15 weeks old so he's coming up to a kind of a milestone in his life. Soon he'll finally finish up his shots and get a shiny tag to hang on his collar. Through positive training we've taught him to sit, down, touch, off, high five, leave it and most recently "turn away" another command I wanted to use to deter him from focusing on the cats too much. He'll do these commands very quickly about 95-100% of the time. He also knows come and stay, but we're still perfecting them. With me he comes about 90% of the time, with other family members probably closer to 70% at best. His stay is only at about 3-5 seconds from about 3 feet away, but we're building. I've learned sooo much about dogs this past month. I've always owned cats before. We had dogs a couple of times when I was a kid, but my parents moved a lot and sadly dogs got left behind.
![Sad :(](./images/smilies/icon_sad.gif)
So this has really been my first time to take on a dog fully. What I'm finding the most fascinating about raising up this pup is watching his little brain work. I've heard Victoria say it on her show so many times about not repeating commands.. sit.. sit.. sit.. I understand that is so the dog knows the command is sit, not sit(x3). But I'm not sure I've heard her mention that if you can be patient and watch the dog, you can see them trying to work it out and a sparkle in their eye when they get it. And as soon as they do, they do want to do it again and again. When I first taught Sulley "touch" it took him a few mins to figure out what I wanted, but once he got that treat once or twice, I couldn't get my hand out quick enough for him to touch!
Since I was noticing Sulley's come was not as strong with the kids and my hubby I decided we would all practice it together so we all had a handful of treats and we called him to come in different corners of the family room and kitchen. At first we were kind of going around the circle. Me, hubby, daughter then repeat. After the third time around Sulley just automatically went to the next person before being called.
![Laughing :lol:](./images/smilies/icon_lol.gif)
He caught on to the pattern that quickly! We then mixed it up for the next few until we had finished up. By the time we got to the last couple of treats he was one tired pup! He finally just flopped on the floor and we all gathered around him with lots of praise!
There is still lots of work to do and lots of growing and learning for both Sulley and us, but we revel in the little victories. Like, he actually nudges us to go out now! YIPPEE. I look forward to walking him on a loose leash. I hope someday he'll stop trying to catch butterfly's and moths. I know someday he'll give up on the cats and stop bringing them toys and bouncing around them like a big galoof perplexed why they don't understand his "let's play" signals that he's giving so clearly. I especially look forward to being out on a walk or somewhere with him and having someone tell me what a good dog he is and asking "how did he get trained so well"? And lastly I look forward to posting his little victories here for everyone to share with us.
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)