Otto at 21 Weeks

Otto is 19.5" and 28lb, 10oz! On Tuesday his puppy harness fit. On Thursday it didn't. Where did this big dog come from and what happened to my tiny puppy?!

We gave a full groom a whirl this week. Bath, blow-dry, some scissoring. It went FAR better than our last attempt, having taken the past month to do some desensitization with the blow drier. He was trooper! This week, we've been working every day on laying on his side on the grooming table, which he understandably finds kind of scary. Yesterday I was able to get him to lay on both sides on the table for brushing. I am hopeful that with continued practice he'll be able to relax on his side while I blow dry him. We've also been working every day on putting bands in his topknot. He's gotten pretty good at keeping his head on a pillow while I brush and part and mess with his hair, but putting the band in is still challenging for some reason. 

Puppy class went WAY better this week! On Saturday we practiced with Otto's friend Everest at his house. We had a training-and-play-date and worked on focusing around another puppy, LLW past another puppy, etc. They also played together really nicely. 

For our class we switched to the earlier class with bigger puppies in it. Otto acted like I had done some training with him a time or two, so that was nice! He recalled past puppies, he recalled away from play, and he LLW through the entire group! Big improvement! He mostly remembered on his own to focus on me. He also had a much better time playing with this group, and we even one of the less rambunctious ones. He's so cute how he flirts with other puppies by licking their faces.

We went to a hunt test! I went to watch and Otto went to listen to gunfire. He was completely un-phased by it, so that was great! The friend who invited me encouraged me to enter him in the puppy stakes, but considering I haven't worked on retrieving with him like at all, and haven't paired retrieving with gunfire, we decided not to embarrass ourselves. It was fun to watch though! I am looking forward to teething being over and snow being gone so we can really start to work on hunting-related skills.

In the continued adventure of integrating the dogs, Jun and Otto trained TOGETHER! Otto worked on sitting on his station while Jun worked, and he was mostly great! By his third time returning to his station he could no longer contain his wiggling and wiggled right off of it! Jun did a great job ignoring him!

This week, we worked on:

• Marking an empty target on cue and distinguishing between mark and attention cues.

• Pivot platform fronts and finishes. I love this drill for teaching straightness on fronts and distinguishing between fronts and finishes, and he picked right up on it! Next step is to my myself closer to the platform for fronts. 

• We continued to work on finding heel position on a sit platform.

• We worked on a bounce-touch for solid/square sits and increased energy/engagement. He has gone from not really enjoying or being enthusiastic about hand touches to loving them! He's different from the border collies in that way. They are fast-twitch about everything. They do everything with enthusiasm and energy whether they understand what they're doing or not. Otto can be slower at first, and I usually panic, worried about him shutting down on me or that this is the "poodles can't handle repetition" that I have always heard about. My breeder suggested that maybe he just didn't "get" hand touches, like maybe he thought there was more he should be doing. I think she was right. He's very much a thinker and I feel like he can be slow with things while he is thinking them through, figuring them out, putting all the pieces in place, and then his enthusiasm picks up with his level of understanding. 

• Added distance to his nose-touch to stanchion. Another nose touch behavior and he really seems to enjoy booping the stanchion with his nose. He's more enthusiastic about this than I had expected.

• We started working on a cued "spin" because I got bored of working other stuff and he needs more tricks. I lured this, because Ira's shaped spin is atrocious and more of a pivot on his front and whip his butt into things kind of move. I am working on fading my lure and adding a verbal. It's going ok, but it's slow, which is why I don't usually train like this. He's started to sometimes offer a little head turn on the verbal.

• We worked on nosework every day and worked on spreading out the containers and putting them in different places. It's coming along!

• We started scent articles!! Since I have the concepts of sustained nose touch and searching for odor from nosework, this is coming super easily and he's already starting to catch on to what pays! I love shaping articles!

• We started working on sit out of motion at a distance. I am tossing a treat, waiting for him to eat it, and calling a sit. He should not move after I call the sit. We are still working pretty close up, and have only done one session on this, but it's going well. I will focus more on this next week.