Training Day 26

I always love Tuesdays. Bailey is always excited to see me after his three day weekend. Today he was in his crate when I got to my Trainer's house. He excitedly wagged his tail and wiggled around in his crate when he saw me. My Trainer however told me she took Bailey to Wal-Mart over the weekend and discovered Bailey might have a little fear of kids. This surprised me because last Friday the Mall was crawling with kids and he seemed to have no problem with them at all. My Trainer said he let out a little growl when he saw one of  the children in Wal-Mart approaching him. I am truly shocked because Bailey has never shown any fear of children in any of the other public places we've been. In fact other than the one time he growled at the woman who startled him (and we were just getting to know each other) he has never growled at anything. Anyway my Trainer wasn't too worried about it and said she was going to start walking him around playgrounds and other heavy kid zones to get him use to seeing a lot of children.
 So first we worked on bell training today, and he's getting almost 100%. Then it was time for hide and seek and he did great! He really loves this game and sometimes he "cheats" and starts to run and find me before he's told to. But when he does this he has to go back and start over. Hide and seek not only tires him out mentally but he gets exercise as well. So after hide and seek it was nap time.
After his thirty minute nap I wanted to do a round of auto-sit, but today I wanted to try it without him being on leash. I put his vest and leash on him and did one round of auto-sit just to get him in working mode. Then I took the leash off (and still kept his vest on). For a seven month old puppy he did remarkably well. He did sometimes stray from my side to sniff something interesting but was quickly redirected back to me . For the most part he heeled by my side and sat every time I stopped my wheel chair. The funny part was even when he was sniffing something about fifteen feet away from me he would suddenly notice that I had stopped my wheel chair and he would sit.  So after about three laps around the pool Bailey was tired and napped all through lunch.

After lunch I wanted to try the new "give kisses" command and have Bailey get up on my lap and lick me. He was not happy about this and was kind of confused. My aide would put his paws on my wheel chair and then say the command and give him treats. But he didn't seem into it. I think he was worried he would hurt me by getting on my chair/lap. I realize now that part of the reason Bailey would lick me when the lab was on top of me last week was because he was worried the lab might be hurting me.  Tomorrow I hope to use his brother (who has no hesitation about jumping up on people) to show Bailey that it is okay to put his front paws on my lap. We also tried to rinforce the head commands for sit and stay by having me and my aide do the head commands at the same time while verbally saying them. He didn't get it and seemed a bit confused by our exagerated head movements, hopefully this will eventually come too. I put him in his crate and then it was time to go. I leave you with a video of Bailey enjoying (figuring out how to enjoy) his new treat, carrots.