Nine Months

It is hard to believe that Rundle will be turning 9 months old tomorrow.  He is now officially a teenage puppy - that sometimes awkward stage between young puppy and adult dog.  I occasionally get hints of adolescent attitude (which means that I need to work harder) but I also get a glimpse into the dog that he will become.  This is the transition age that is sometimes challenging, sometimes sad but mostly exciting.  It is sometimes challenging because sometimes young dogs "forget" things they knew just a few months earlier.  It is sometimes sad because those cute, fun puppy days are now behind us.  But it is also exciting because that wee little pup is now growing up and hopefully we will have many exciting adventures together.

Rundle - 9 Month Stack

Rundle and I are still working on lots of foundation obedience exercises.  Fronts, finishes, finding heel position, dumbbell holds, position changes and targeting.  This is all stuff we have been working on since Rundle was a little pup but now I am making it more challenging for him with distractions and other added difficulty in the criteria I expect.  We also still make sure we play everyday both during and outside of training.  Rundle loves playing with me, with or without a toy and I will really need that later in our training when I need to keep Rundle interested and excited to work with me when the training cookies go away.

Something new that we have been working on is scent article discrimination.  We have started our training with metal articles using canning lids and have been working on this for about a month or so.  Since Rundle is still learning a formal retrieve, he indicates the correct article (the one I have touched) to me with a nose touch (which he learned when he was a little guy).  Eventually, he will learn on wooden and leather articles as well as the metal.  Once he has a decent dumbbell retrieve, I will put it all together.  Here is a little video of Rundle working on his articles:

Another new thing that we will be doing is a photography project.  This will be my 4th year doing the Flickr "52 Weeks For Dogs" project.  So, I will need to plan, shoot and submit one photo a week to the project group.  I expect to be challenged with this in 2014 as Rundle does not pose for the camera so I guess I will be doing a lot more action shots next year :)

We should have a busy year coming up.  Between training, playing and photography, Rundle should be kept busy and hopefully out of mischief.