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Photo 37/365, with a training update

Gimli is now almost 14 weeks old. He weighs just shy of twenty pounds, and his ears are considering standing up. At this point we have been training fairly consistently for four or five weeks now using the Zak George Dog Training Revolution, and things are really coming along swimmingly.

With regards to the basics, we haven't had a potty accident in the house that wasn't our fault (i.e. not knowing he was waiting at the front door) in several weeks. Gimli is solid on look at me, leave it, sit, lay down, come, and stay in any controlled environment, and I'd say he's 50/50 in environments with high distraction, which I figure is pretty good for such a young pup! In those situations we are continuing to train with a 1:1 reward ratio to improve results, and the 50/50 is already an improvement over a week ago, so I figure we're on the right track. The other day I had him in a long lead stay in our front driveway when the neighbor drove into their driveway and started unloading the car...and he stayed! 

In the world of fun tricks, Gimli has a pretty solid spin, roll over, and high five. We started working on speak last week but abandoned the effort when it got too noisy. But I sat in on Calvin's training session yesterday and realized that he has started teaching some of the agility practices, including circling, traveling through, and climbing to rest on an elevated surface. The relation to agility I think was just a coincidence—Calvin was just looking for fun new things, but the two of them are doing great together, and I love that. 

Tonight Gimli, although younger than all the other participants and clearly more high strung, maybe due in part to age, was the star of his puppy class, with Calvin performing the duties of handler. 

Love

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