It's hard to admit but it's almost been a week. We don't really want to admit that our time is almost up because we have so enjoyed having Miss Layla Blu around. Perhaps if we closed our eyes the end won't come...
Layla has been playing really well with the other dogs.
It's normal for dogs to use their mouths in play as long as they are inhibiting their bite and just lightly mouthing each other. Layla will sometimes get a little too vocal in her play but I just interrupt her in a nice easy tone by walking towards her and saying "too much." This is a good way to test out your leadership skills too. Does she respond when you quietly ask her to stop? She should. If she doesn't, it might be time to look at your relationship with her and see where you might need to make some adjustments so she's looking to you for leadership.
She is still consistently coming when called...even in the middle of playing with her friends. We're still having to work a little bit to get her to come faster but she's improving!
She's doing really well with name recognition and paying attention in moderately distracting environments.
But for new, exciting things she still struggles a bit with her attention. You can get her attention but it takes a little bit of work. More exposure and practice in distracting environments will help with this. Getting distance away from the distraction and rewarding more frequently and with higher value treats for attention will help. Those darn kitties are hard to pass up...
She's doing really well with getting in her crate when asked to do so. She's getting lots of different, exciting activities to do in her crate and she looks forward to this time. Daily practice of being alone for short periods of time has almost extinguished any whining she was doing in the kennel when I left. Now she happily goes into her kennel and gets to work on her toy/chew/treat.
She's doing pretty well with going to her bed. She will do so when I ask (sometimes she needs a reminder to lay all the way down). She's working on her stay on the bed and will probably need a nice chew treat or toy to help her build up some duration on the bed.
Layla's doing well with alerting me to her mealtimes. She is poking my hand with her nose when it's time for meals and we're working on getting that poke a little more persistent. She'll need to continue to practice this at home with her regular schedule at home so she starts to get use to those time periods. It might be helpful, in the beginning, to set timers so you are consistent while she learns the schedule. This one pays off big for her...she LOVES her meals!
No comments:
Post a Comment