On Campus

Rugby finally got his stitches removed today (longer than one week...i know :p). He was already wound up pretty tight from not really doing anything for two whole weeks, but once his feet were free....he was a wild man!

Before when we were waiting in the vets office to get them out the ladys at the desk were like...ohhhh hes the good one (they remembered him from before)! All we did was heel into the office, I 'placed' him onto the chair next to me and had him doing a down stay and they were very amazed that he was actually listenting to me. While this was very flattering..I must say in a way it is also very pittiful that a simple down stay can draw so much attention. They were also amazed that his bandages were intact and not torn to shred. HAHA!

He was supposed to come in his bag to class with me but I he was not having any part of that. He was way too hyper and too excited to sit in a bag for that long. So we walked around campus for a whole hour. Good thing we did because it took 30 minutes just for him to settle down and remember all his manners. We worked on so many things and he did incredibly well! I never realized how useful the set up of my campus was for training!!

The biggest thing is that there are about 1 million stairs (I wish I was exaggerating) and Rugby after a few flights of stairs was heeling up and down them. Before he would try but just ended up heeling for a couple steps then going to the bottom or top and waiting for me. But he got enough practice today that he took his time and stayed beside me the whole time.

Our second biggest distraction is people (first is dogs). There is definetely not a shortage of people on campus and Rugby after the first half hour was heeling very nicely thorugh crowds and weaving in and out of people with me. (We are going to pretend the first 30 min. never happened since he was so excited lol) We practiced our halts a LOT since those seemed to emphasize his distraction level (if he sat where he was supposed to he was paying attention, if not...). This also helped me to see what things we needed to work on more. Quite a few times when we came to a halt I would drop him (down him) with people still walking around us. He didn't have a problem with that at all, as long as I made sure he heard me. ;)

We placed onto benches, and step things and anything I thought he could jump on. He actually suprised me with how well he did on this considering we haven't really been working on it (oops).

We are supposed to be working on figure 8s and finishes. With all the good stuff we found to work with on campus, things to walk around was not one of them. There were a couple of lightposts and things that we did circles around but nothing really catered to our figure 8 needs. We did practice the finishes though. After we practiced 4 times there (all in differend places) we stopped to do another set of sit/stays, comes and finishes. I called him to me and wrapped the leash behind me and before I could say the command Rugby ran around behind me and was in heel position! LOL He finally got it! YEAH!

We changed surfaces lots and lots of times, and even walked on some of that orange construction/security fencing that had fallen down. He had no problems with anything! We even walked passed a guy in a wheel chair and it actually made Rugby really happy! His butt started wiggling and he tried to go over and say hi. :) He also met a lady that has 3 maltese at home and she told him he was very cute.

I am very very happy with him. He did everything very well today. Now he is one tired puppy and crashed out in his bed beside me.