Training Day 47

As you may know the reason (well part of the reason) Bailey  has been living with his trainer is because our family dog Annie was very dog aggressive. Also because she was quite old I didn't want to introduce a puppy into the house and stress her out. She was the sweetest dog with people. Kids use to climb all over her and she wouldn't do anything except stand there patiently. She knew all her toys by name and if you  said "Annie go get your monkey" she would look all over until she found her monkey.When nobody was paying attention to her she would lie on her back and "smile" (she would pull her top lip back) and wait for someone to not be able to resist her smile, and give her attention. Up until recently as I would be heading to bed Annie would come from wherever she was at and lay down on her bed in my room and spend all night with me. We had to put her down on Saturday. She was the best dog and will be missed!
So when I got there today I was eager to see Bailey after such a sad weekend. He was in his crate and made a happy fuss when he saw me at the door. After we let him out he jumped on top of me and immediately washed my face with kisses. Then we went straight into a light switch session. Today we worked on something a little different. The light switches we have on the big wooden board are at three different heights. But in the real world a light switch would be positioned higher. So today we took the little mobile switch board and held it up higher against the wall. My goal was to get Bailey to jump up and put his front paws on the wall in order to flip the switch. He was hesitant at first but eventually I got him to jump up twice onto the wall. But both times I could tell he was not use to this and he did not flip the switch. I still rewarded him for jumping up though . Like everything this will come.
 So after that I took Bailey out to play hide and seek. My aide took Bailey into the tennis courts and practiced sit, down and stay. I hid in the back yard. Bailey was really into the game today and every time my aide said "go find Eva" he pulled her through the courts and into the yard to find me. After that we went inside to chill for a little bit and my Mom and Aunt came over to hang out with me and Bailey. He was kind of nervous having so many visitors but didn't bark or growl at them (definitely an improvement). Eventually he went up to both of them asking for attention. He would go in a circle from me to my aide to my Mom to my Aunt getting love and pats. So cute! I figured out that the trick with new people is to just have them ignore him and then eventually he can't stand that no one is giving him attention so he gets over his shyness and approaches them. So after their visit it was time for lunch. Bailey just chilled while we ate lunch and then when we were done we took Bailey out into the side yard for some play time.  All in all a good day.