Traning Day 16

We are hitting the "teenage phase". For those who don't know what the teenage phase is let me explain. At about 7-12 months dogs hit adolescence. This means in regards to training puppies that they tend to be more stubborn and "forget" previous commands. For Bailey his "teenage phase" (so far) consists of him not being focused. We did auto-sit training and he was more interested in inspecting, sniffing and licking my wheelchair than sitting. He eventually sat every time I stopped my chair but it took him a lot longer than normal to focus. After auto-sit training my physical therapist came for about an hour and Bailey laid on his mat the entire time. I think he was dreaming about nursing because he was making sucking motions with his mouth. So cute!
After physical therapy I wanted to take him out to pee. I used my new technique of putting him on a longer leash and while he didn't immediately pee he did go pretty fast. During lunchtime he napped and chewed on his bone. Baileys funny- he has to have two bones with him at the same time in between his paws. I didn't do light switch training today because I wanted him to not get frustrated .
After lunch I wanted to take Bailey into the side yard to play with the other dogs. Bailey is the only puppy in the house right now and when he's playing with the other adult dogs I can totally see his puppyness. He hops and bounces when he plays and goes after a toy. One of the other dogs was playing pretty rough and I could tell Bailey was intimidated (not to the point of scaring Bailey just making him a little hesitant). For service dogs you have to be very careful about who they interact with. One scuffle could traumatize them and wash them out of service work. I know way too many people who had to stop training and retire (wash out) their dogs because of this happening. Some people think that because service dogs are so well trained that they can bounce right back from a traumatic event but a lot of times they can't. For this reason I unfortunately won't be taking Bailey to any dog parks,or letting him meet random dogs. But he will have "dog friends" that I know are not dog aggressive in any way. Overall Bailey had a great time. I left him in the side yard (as I was asked to do) and left for the day.