Day Seven with Foster Dog Bruce

Sunday - but we still work on training

In the morning I walked Bruce up the road to the pond. I figure he can be off lead next to the road since he is able to focus so well on the ball. There is not as much traffic on this road on Sunday. Bruce did fairly well with keeping a loose leash on the walk to the pond and I did do some recalls when he forgot. The command COME is an important one that should be consistently worked on.

Bruce LOVES the pond and the ball fetching. If his new owns can bring him to pond, lake, or other waterway often he will be in heaven. Bruce is bit too much in a hurry to leave to get the ball that he sometimes doesn't notice where I toss it. I kept changing the spot in the pond where I threw the ball so he would learn to watch where I tossed it. He is still chomping too much on the ball and it is still hard to remove it easily from his month. I am now asking for a sit each time before I try to take the ball from him. I am also clicking for when he stops chomping on it for a second. It will take time for him to learn to have a less active mouth when holding the ball.

I had family over today and Bruce did a lot of barking as we where working in the yard and he could see us, but was in his dog yard. After a long while he did shut up, but would start again if I past his yard while going to get tools. He does need to learn more self control and it will come when he see that the barking just doesn't get him what he wants. From time to time when he was quiet I would bring him a few dogs kibbles and ask for a sit and click and treat.

In the evening I played ball in the yard with him. He got too hot and went and jumped in my goldfish pond with his ball. My largest fish was upset and nearly jumped out the pond. I will have to keep Bruce out of my fish pond.

Good News

My golf cart is fixed again! Bought a part at the store yesterday to fix it. So now I can use it once again to help exercise Bruce.

I have been having some Internet connection troubles and it is hard for me to get online and update this blog. It is especially hard to add photos to it. Hope this problem ends soon.