Training day 7

So when I arrived at my trainer's house today my trainer said my "lovely" dog had been awake since 2am this morning. He was not sick or in pain just up! My wonderful trainer stayed up with him all morning (I wouldn't have done that). So needless to say by 10am he was pretty tired. Nonetheless we did bell training and he was really really good. He came almost every time. We then worked on the mat-getting him to lie down on the mat. My trainer has been working with him on this and he is so much better. He will willingly lie down on the mat and stay there.

Then we worked on getting him into the car. As we were walking outside my smart dog somehow pressed the button on my citronella spray bottle (used to deter stray dogs). Bailey was not phased by it at all. Now he has always been great in the car-doesn't get sick, doesn't whine. But we haven't been able to train him to jump up on the back seat. So today I was determined to get him up on the backseat. Easier said then done. My aide tried everything from luring him onto the seat with treats to pushing his butt up onto the seat. He didn't have a clue as to what we wanted him to do. And I was stumped for ideas too! So we asked my trainer to help us out. And she magically got Bailey to go up on the back seat. Well not magically. She opened the trunk of my van and called him from the back while gently tugging on his leash. And he jumped up on the backseat with no problem. We did it a few more times to make sure he got it. After that we went back inside and he crashed out. Now he normally naps while I'm there but today he passed out-hmmm could that be since he was up since 2am? I had to wake him up before I ate lunch to take him outside to pee.Up until now Bailey would stand and just pee, which resulted in him peeing on himself. But today he actually kind of squatted like a normal dog! Yay! And then we came back inside and he crashed again. After lunch I wanted to see if he remembered the van so we took him outside to practice. He did great. It's like he never had a problem. I then took him on a walk and kind of used the neighbors dog to practice him not barking. He was definitely interested but kept quiet. After the walk he was tired so I put him in his crate and left.