Oct 13th - 26th (two weeks) - lots of pics and videos

Hi Everyone, I forgot to do a blog post last week so I am doing a two week blog post. Luke is doing so well in his training and making great strides. When we go out to places I am no longer having to give any type of correction and he ignores distractions. I also find that I am only needing treats when we do new tasks or working on more advance things.

Also Tomorrow is Luke's 1st Birthday. The girls picked out special dog bakery treats to give him on his birthday and dont tell him but we got him a nice big bone as well.

Ok so on with what we did and where we went :)

We are still working on Bring It, Give It and Take It. Luke loves to bring us things (shoes, toys, paper, pretty much anything he can) however he does not always give them to us but prances around with it. I got a training dumbell to try and shape this behavior better.

We got to work on long down stays due to have more workers at our house this week too. Luke is getting much better at these and I can actually leave the room now for a few minutes and he will stay until I give him the release word. Also did some refresh work on "place"

Along with the training dumbell I also got a target stick. We are working on introducing it and with in a few tries he caught on that he only gets treats when his nose hits the ball at the end. I will be making a few videos of us using this tool.  For anyone interested in the tool it is called a clik stik.

We have stairs in our house and I use them for training as well. Not only to help train Luke on helping Ara walking but with just obedience, body awareness and to test his skills. I will have Luke wait at the top then tell him slow forward, stop, sit, ect while he is coming down. It is kind of like a game of red light green light. Then I will have him wait at the bottom (which has a kid gate) and I will have him open the gate and come slow forward, back up, wait and go back which requires pushing open the gate. All of this is at his own pace I dont tell him to hurry up or encourage him to run the stairs. He is very agile and for a 1yr old has good body awareness.

Also Luke worked on doing Deep Pressure with Ara, this is were he places his head or paws on her for sensory in put, grounding ect. Also Ara has been working on walking Luke by herself on our side walk and such.

Pictures - read down for the places we went :)

Now for the places we went :  (some of the places we went several times)
Michaels - worked on PAT and Find Car

Bed Bath and Beyond x 2 - PAT, Find Dad, Stop at Intersection, Find Car

Albertsons x2 - Bathroom (we are working on Luke fitting him self into the smaller stalls now), Find Car, Cross Walks

Billings Hardware - PAT specifically worked on drop leash staying in heel. Luke did great with this

Therapy -  we had not been to therapy in two weeks due to colds. So we had to do a bit of refresher work with Luke. He is having a hard time settling while in OT so we will need to work on that.

Carters Kids Store - Ara asked to lead Luke so I gave her the lead and she held it and the handle on his vest. She gave him commands and lead him to the play table...lol Ara is asking to be more involved all the time and I always ask her if she wants to help during our training sessions.

Out side of Carters/Bed Bath and Beyond - I found this great little courtyard and it is perfect for working on some things in public but yet not in a busy area. We worked on Ara and Luke working together, of course I videoed it so I will attach it to the bottom of this :)

Walmart - Directions right/left, intersections, distractions (he is now ignoring most distractions in stores), Find Car (he was able to find our car and actually went a different way than we had come in. He is getting very good at this.

Hobby Lobby- We had another neat experience, with a child. We met a little boy who had been chased and bitten by two dogs and was afraid of dogs. After chatting with his mom for a bit him talking to Ara, he wanted to try and pet Luke. Luke stood very still for the boy and put his head down for him to pet. It is so funny how he responds to different people. With our greet cue he would normally move forward toward the child and offer a kiss or so, but with this little boy he knew to be a bit more calm. Ara had fun talking to the little boy and the little boy left being happy he pet a nice dog.

Doing a great Stand Stay at Hobby Lobby

Videos from these two weeks