Saturday's Fun

Early this morning Bella had an agility lesson. The instructor has some nice kennels out for the dogs to rest in, so Zane went and sat in the kennel. I wanted to work on good behavior in the kennel, so every time Bella came out to work, Zane got a bit of his breakfast. So Bella and me leaving were a good thing to him. He met a new Valhund, and he interacted with the Aussie he snapped at last time. I put him in the end kennel this time so he'd only have dogs on one side. Next time he'll go in a middle kennel so he will have to deal with dogs on two sides. He's not showing near as much stress about other dogs now.

This afternoon we went swimming again. After a couple of short swims (like 1-2 feet to the ramp), we tried to get him to go down the ramp into the water. I think that was a mistake. He ended up going off the side and went underwater. He was not happy with that. Next time I think we'll continue to hold him in the water and slowly lower him in. That seems to work better for him.

After swimming, he took a long nap, drank a lot of water, and ended up having his first real accident in the house. Oh well. . . it had to happen.

He had a late lunch, so for his regular dinner time he wasn't very hungry. He doesn't like doing downs for kibble much, and tonight was horrible. It just wasn't worth it to him to do a down for kibble. I got three out of him, but he resisted mightily. We'll try again later with some chicken. He was able to hold a down while I lightly tossed a kibble or rolled it toward him. He could resist a kibble on one paw, but not on the other while he held his down.

He did do paw touches for kibble, and several hand touches before getting distracted by people in the next pasture and by the doves in the yard. Since he wasn't very hungry, I just put his dinner away and will try again later. I was going to do Aim For It to a large fleece toy, so hopefully we can still get that in.

We're also starting to reach the "ear" stage. Right now one ear seems to be carried higher than the other. He looks a little lopsided. Ears do such weird things through teething. I'm sure we'll get a lot of hysterical ear pictures the next few months! And there's definitely stuff happening in the mouth. He's chewing everything now. Those jaws need to work!