And the Learning Begins

Today was Cayman's 1st time being put into his "puppy playpen" while I took my daughter, Shaylee, to get her first haircut. He was NOT happy about it at all. Even when outside, getting into my car, I could hear him yelping. Poor little guy. Its yet another new adjustment he will need to get used to, especcially tomorrow since I will have to leave him again to go buy party supplies for Shaylee's 2nd birthday party this Saturday. And I go back to work on Thursday so he will be alone from about 9:30am till my mom comes home for lunch around noon, and then again until 5:30pm when my mom and I get home from work. Weekends will be easier for him since there always seems to be someone home then.

We also worked on responding to his name and the "sit" command today. He did really good! He sat when given the command about 90% of the time. The other 10% was him trying to sit up prarie dog style or jumping up to get the treat. He is also doing really well with the housebreaking. He has had one poo accident this morning and thats it. He has gone and done his business each and every time I let him outside. Other than the waking up at the crack of damn (or even before) he has been an absolute dream of a puppy! I couldn't have gotten luckier. I am only hoping that he continues this trend of being such a good boy and look forward to the first night he sleeps thru the night.

I have also begun working with his feet, meaning touching them and holding them to get him used to them being handled. Other than my poodle, Zoey, I have yet to have a dog that sits nicely during a nail trim. I made the mistake of not conditioning them to be used to their feet being handled until I got Zoey as a puppy. To practice the feeling of his feet being handled, I trimmed the hair that grew out from between his paw pads with a pair of grooming scissors. Now he not only has neat and tidy paws but also got about 10 minutes of feet handling time. He squirmed a bit but was good overall.