Gracie 5 months

Gracie just turned 5 months and has wasted no time embracing her teenager status.  Easiest puppy is becoming naughtier puppy, but not yet at home.  She's all legs now but still weighs a measly 29lbs.

Biggest issue this last month has oddly enough been potty training.  Gracie pretty much trained herself at 8wks of age and with good management from myself I could count the number of accidents she had on one hand.  Then this last month she started pooping in her crate in the middle of the night.  Wouldn't make a peep, and her crate is in the bedroom so I would hear.  Thankfully it was completely solid so cleanup sucked at 2am but it could've been worse.  I shrunk her kennel tiny and it didn't help.  Finally ended up taking away all her bedding and it seemed to do the trick.  Just put the bedding back this week and *knock on wood* no problems yet. 

Things were focusing more on now:
1. Retrieves- The hold training has been started now that she aims for my hand no matter where I put it.  Simply shaping it is working well for her and these last few days I think the lightbulb has clicked as she made a huge leap in time.

2. Switch vs Touch-  Gracie's target is on the wall but not quite at full push plate height because of her tiny stature.  She's also doing a low lightswitch, flipping it up with her nose.  Discerning which picture requires the use of her paw and which requires use of her nose is our current challenge.  She often offers a combination of the two which while it gets the job done, is not what I'm looking for.

3. Visit vs Under-  Gracie knows the head rest to my lap pretty well so in order to work on sending her to visit another person, I'm teaching her to send to a chair.  We're currently working on duration and also added distractions of keeping her head down while my hand with food is moving around above her.  Her added challenge is discriminating the verbal visit cue with her under cue to lie down underneath the chair.  I'm not yet mixing up the 2 in order during a session.

4. Stand- Many days she has a 100% accuracy in her little jump up and landing into a stand.  Then the next day it breaks and it takes her several tries to not jump up and land in a sit.  All days combined, we're looking at maybe a 75% accuracy with her slightly better if started from my side and even better if done with a wall next to her.

And of course throwing in a mixture of other things she knows such as tugging drawers and baskets, going to mat, stays, going to heel and side, etc.  I think I've done the least amount of tricks with her as compared to the other puppies but she sure loves to offer the ones she knows!