13 Weeks

Rundle turned 13 weeks old on Saturday and over the past week I have noticed an increase in his energy level.  He is napping less and wanting to play more.  He is getting more and more enthusiastic about training and is getting more confident about offering behaviours.  I have also noted that he seems to have a high frustration level - meaning that he will keep trying without getting frustrated that he is not being rewarded.

This past week, I faded the clicker and hand lures on the behaviours that he knows well and have started random reinforcement on several behaviours.  I will still use the marker word "yes" or give him verbal praise when he does something correctly, but I am fading out the cookies on the things we have been working on for a while and that he is fairly solid on.  He has no problems working for several repetitions without a (food) reward (I always praise).

We continue to work on all the basic behaviours we have started - recalls, sit, down, stand, hand touches, etc., as these foundation behaviours will be needed in the more complex training we do later.  We also continue to do body awareness work (balance disc, peanut ball, pivots).  For fun this week, I decided to teach him to weave between my legs when walking - he thinks it is very fun but I might regret it later when he is much bigger than he is now :) We have also started adding duration to his sits and downs (the beginning of a stay) - I do this very slowly and right now I am adding a bit of lateral movement on my part, but not any distance yet.

Here is another little video of what we have been working on.  Rundle is a very bouncy puppy and you will see this a couple times in the video.  Bouncing is just ignored and it's not something I am really concerned about - puppies jump and bounce.  Rundle also seems to come from a family of enthusiastic bouncers - some may think it is it annoying but I find it fun and hopefully we can use his love for bouncing later in our training as I am considering putting that natural behaviour on cue once he is more mature.