September 17

How did time move so fast?  I haven't recorded anything in a very long time!

Lily let Ry rest his head on her while she slept, how happy she was with him!

So, a lot has happened since I last wrote about what we have been doing.  Remus has been pretty consistent with his responses to cues, the environment and people.  He still tinkles when he greets someone if he hasn't had a chance to pee first.  (I'm trying to work through this without creating a long lasting problem.)  Ry's (and my) cat Lily passed away at the beginning of September after an almost 2 week battle with kidney failure, infection and blood clots (we're presuming since she had so many problems at the time I had to put her to sleep.)  We miss Lily very much.

Re is 5 months now.  His attention span is much longer than it had been!  Since Lil had gotten sick and then died, I have been slacking a lot with Re's socialization outings.  We had gone to Norris a couple of times but not anywhere else that I can remember.  This month my goal is to venture out of our old places and go to some new ones.  So far, we have gone to Cobb's Corner and Derby Street Shops.  These are great places to venture to since they are big enough that I can take him to different parts and it will be like visiting a new place again! I also noticed that Re may becoming stressed when he sees people when we are out walking.  He sits or starts to lie down when they come close to us while he looks up at them (I'm not 100% sure that he's not staring) and I do not want this to escalate into a reactive behavior.  So, behavior modification it is.  Now whenever we see someone I ask Re for eye contact and attention then reward him for doing so (because really, he doesn't need to say "hi" to every single person he sees.)  I am teaching a reactive dog class with Katrin and have decided to teach Re the emergency cue: Quick so that in the future I have it if I need it.  It's really just a way of getting your dog to follow you immediately to prevent any reactive behavior from happening.

I am so happy with Remus' loose leash walking!  He walks very close to me most of the time (like 50-75%), he does still get distracted and will pull when he decides he needs to sniff.   On the whole though, he is the best at walking on leash of the dogs that I have had.  I was pondering this today- is the way that I teach my dogs to walk on leash getting better or is Re just picking up on it better than the other dogs?  Probably a combination of both.  We click together.  :-)