Dante Got a New Coat

Things have been rolling along here in Wisconsin - Dante is just a wonderful puppy!! I am honestly shocked at how quickly he's settled into our home and routine. Last night when I tucked him in his crate to go to sleep for the night he protested for about 10 seconds, then he curled up, groaned and went to sleep. This week we are "looking forward" to zero and minus zero temperatures, so a new coat was in order. I guessed at the sizing and thankfully it fits perfect (which means in a matter of weeks it will be too small). Last night he wore it outside and for the 1st time was pretty happy to be out there.

I started clicker training him - sit and come are doing very, very well - especially when the whole prospect of a treat is there just around the corner. Polly was right, their eye contact is something an obedience person would "die for". I also started working on "Down", but that is going to take a little more time.

Nail trimming and the Kong are a match made in heaven!!! If any of you are having any difficulty with nail trimming, I have my husband hold Dante and a peanut butter loaded kong - It frees up both my hands to do the nails and they are done in a matter of minutes.

Socialization is also going along well. We have our first puppy class this weekend and will attend a "Puppy Party" afterwards (which is apparently a great opportunity to socialize with other puppies). He visited last weekend, on Saturday, with my friend Penny Honetor and Rob Glazier's Vizslas. We had a party to go to that night and it provided the perfect opportunity to socialize with some different dogs - Treeva went with him. The next day (Sunday) we visited with my brother's Dachshund - they played very hard together (lots of growling on Dante's part - Karen I can see what you mean about the growling he did with littermates). Up until now, he generally doesn't growl when he plays with large dogs. I honestly think he thought my brother's dog was a litter mate. There was never any aggression, but he growled most of the time he was chasing him - and he took lots of "time outs" to sit for a minute before he returned to play. On a great note, the Dachshund held his own and was never intimidated by the growling.

So that is what is going on here. I am going to post some pictures of him in his new coat as soon as I get them taken and loaded in the computer.
Mary