Update

It has been a while. Rugby pretty much has the down covered. I still need to help him a little bit, but he goes down by himself, with a very purposful plop and some tail wagging. :p I am not sure that the stand is getting too much better. We have stopped focusing on the actually getting up to stand part and started working on the 'stay' part. He goes mostly up by himself, and we can stand for 30 seconds and/or walk around him one full circle without breaking/sitting. We only worked on it on time though, so I think he will improve lots the next time we work on it. Hopefully it will help him to better understand what the stand really is too, and help him 'get it' more.

Rugby was doing very very well with his dumbell. He was so enthusiastic and he wanted to do it, untill we got to the point that it was about an inch from his face and he had to fetch it. This is the first time he refused to fetch the dumbell, and the first time he was corrected. He was truely offended, and decided....he wasn't going to fetch. Sooo, we had to get some help to get back on track and with a few extra days of convincing we are back to that point again. I think he is ready to go further away (6 in) because the last time we worked he offered the fetch to me about 87% of the time. We are also moving the dumbell around his face so it isn't a straight fetch, he has to turn to get it...and the last time we worked on that he was doing it without any help.

Rugby also officialy started his raw meaty bones diet. He LOVES it...a lot. I was surprised that he took to it so quick, because if I were him I am not sure that I would recognize a chicken wing as food right away, but he did. He has gotten progressively better and more efficient at eating chicken wings the past couple of days except one thing...he doesn't eat the bones. That is a problem, he isn't going to be getting that calcium and nutrients in the bones and he isn't benefiting from that tooth cleaning the bones provide. I will give him another chance, but if he doesn't get it soon I will just grind the bones up and put it in something that he will eat. Since reading the books, I found that there are some people that don't feed bones at all, or feed them at a significantly lower frequency than the authors of the books I read, so I suppose it isn't a big deal if I have to resort to grinding them. Oh...and he doesn't like chicken feet. I though they looked pretty funny and got them to see what he would do with them....nope he just licked it and picked it up, put it down and stared at me like....where is my dinner really at?

The books I read...

'Raw Dog Food' by Carina Beth MacDonald
-This was more of a 'how to' feed raw efficiently and in a costly manner.
'Work Wonders: Feed Your Dog Raw Meaty Bones' by Tom Lonsdale
-He is a vet and the book was a 'why' feed raw meaty bones. It was after this book that I though 'oh my god...I can't feed Rugby kibble any more...we need to switch!'
and
'raw meaty bones: Promote Health' also by Tom Lonsdale
-This one is significantly longer and is a 'why kibble is horrible and raw is not' book.

And how could I forget new Christmas pictures? They aren't as bright as the other ones...which is a little dissapointing, but that is ok.