On August 8th, 2016, Alexandra wrote:

“We are loving each day with Piper, all thanks to you! We learned sit, down, leave it, come, watch – constantly working on these last two, building for time & distance. I can see her sometimes think ‘what do you want from me, did I not watch long enough already?’ or ‘I’m coming, I’m coming… oh, wait, there’s a stone there I gotta check out, I’ll be right with you!’ haha. We can also wait for up to 1 minute, stay for up to 1 minute as well, we’ll work on longer stays as we grow up more, don’t want to put too much pressure on her body. As for heeling, she hops when she heels haha, like she’s saying ‘let’s go already mom!’. We are now starting to introduce distractions, doing more training outside, but only on things we’ve mastered in the quiet space of the home.

Fun things we learned: to play tug, of course (and “out” whenever she needs to leave the toy, which we do without hesitation), to “speak”, spin, touch and hug, of course. We call it “bear hug” haha, so much enthusiasm for that particular “game”, of course. Lot’s of “no-s” and “ahh ahh-s” and “leave it” too. …

We started her first puppy class at 9 weeks old, and joined a second course at 10 weeks and a half, as we wanted to socialize her as much as possible with other pups/dogs and people in a controlled & safe environment.

Another training class we started and completed was a low-impact intro agility as well, puppy-friendly. We never tried agility before, lots to learn. But oh my! Does she ever love it! I know I sent you a picture earlier with her on a dog walk at 9 weeks old, she went on it by herself, all brave. We did lots of body conditioning in the intro sessions, from learning where our paws are on a horizontal ladder, to learning to “hit it” on the marker, and staying on a target with our front paws while moving our bum left / right. We LOVE the wobble board, no fear, we were the only dog in the class to go on it the first class haha! “