Gracie 17wks

Haven't done much new training with Gracie these past few weeks since the puppy swap.  I've been trying to re-inspire myself and have at least started a few new things this last week.

Personality wise, Gracie is really starting to shine.  She loves her toys and it's been nice to have had to do very little training with her to actually bring the toy back to me for tugging!  Gracie's also been nice to me in that I haven't really had to train alternating food and toys as a reward.  See, easiest puppy ever still!

Queen of the playground.  Zoom, Zoom, then hide and attack!

Her biggest battle though has been with her food dish.  Gracie works nicely at dinner time with her food sitting on a chair or coffee table just inches away.  When put on the floor Gracie continues to do a wonderful job of leaving the food alone and for the most part does as I ask.  However, despite the fact that she's physically leaving the food dish she certainly is not mentally.  She's practically quivering in excitement as she stares at her dish after each click and continues to stare at the dish if it is at all possible to continue doing so while still doing what I asked.  On the positive side, she is at least able to have 50% of her brain there while Bubba's obsession only left him with 10% and insane spazzing with the rest.

Gracie passed the level 2 test today and is now officially in intermediate class at the service dog organization.  Teacup Labrador is 22.5lbs.  I'm wondering if I accidentally put her in the dryer.

Since the last update:

1. Stays- Mastered walking behind her, mild distractions, and distance.  Working mainly on boring old time now, focusing on the sit since I figure once mastered the down will be a piece of cake.

2. Position work- Loves to offer heel and side position and I'm not using a perch at all anymore.  Doesn't quite know verbal only cues but will come to the correct side I'm asking for if my head is turned in the right direction.  In heel will side step one shuffle at a time, pivot 360 degrees in position, and can back up 3 steps.  Needs much more work on this in side position.

3. 2o2o- Backs up to it now.  Started raising the height of the box.  I also really need to work on distance of backing up away from me.

4. Light switches- Pretty consistent with using her nose to flip the switch up, a tube is still attached.  Will be moving to the low switch on the wall this week.

5. Stand- Loves her jump up and is also doing well with a mini stay on her land.  Biggest hurdle is the two are only combined when I click the jump and immediately reward, otherwise she goes into a sit right away.

6. Retrieves- Picks up a variety of objects and is pretty good about targeting my hand.  Have not yet started a hold but I think this will actually be pretty easy for her unlike most dogs I've trained.

7. Tug- Finally convinced her to stop automatically jumping into the basket and to grab the rope instead.  Gracie will now drag me a tiny basket to my hand, but we're still only doing 2-3ft so we really practice the putting rope into hand portion.  She's also had a few lessons on tugging open a very light cabinet but I'm limiting this practice until she's better with the previous mentioned version of tugging.

8. Shake/Paw- going back to this and making sure she understands which paw to lift is cued by which hand i'm offering.

9. Frog legs- just started.  She has no idea what I want but it's cute.

10. Visit- Generalizing her "sad" behavior (head to floor) to now be head to my lap. 

11. Touch- working the target on height now so that she has to paw the target taped to a wall.