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So, 12 weeks, 1st milestone 
The boy started attending "Puppy Playtime" sessions. These are not training classes, but rather just supervised play dates with other puppies. He's been to 3 sessions.
On the first - he spent most of time either hiding behind chairs, or trying to engage with others but inevitably being chased by some huge ones back to the chairs.
On the second - he felt a lot more confident, played and ran around with some of them, while staying away from the big ones. Especially from an enormous St Bernard.
On the third - feeling all confident, he was bravely engaging with all puppies there, including the big ones, to the point where the trainer had to step in and calm him down a little. The enormous St Bernard wasn't there though.
Next session on Monday... I suspect that the huge baby St Bernard, who is by far the biggest one there and the bully of the class, will have to discover the Ridgeback way of playing, it will be interesting to see how it goes. Ari (our previous RR) enjoyed wrestling with Newfoundlands and St Bernards, and usually had the upper hand, thanks to much higher agility.
We started practicing recall and loose leash walking. So far, better success with recall.
House training is going well, no accidents inside lately. He can hold longer now and asks when he needs to be taken outside.
Getting on the counters is a challenge.. well, standing up on hind legs, and looking what's there on the counter. Especially when it's time to have a meal. This is unexpected for us - I guess we were spoiled by Ari who never did this, even during his craziest teenage periods. So, we ordered a "pet corrector" which is essentially a little can of compressed air, with which you can make hissing noise. Both the can, and the noise it makes, have absolutely no effect on Miles. In fact, it all ended up being an encouragement, I am sure, because we couldn't help laughing at Miles's reaction to this hissing thing, which was a mildly surprised look - while standing up with his front legs on the counter - and then turning attention back to exploring the counter itself.
We introduced him to The Dremmel, and while he remains very suspicious of it - there is progress, yesterday we were able to trim one paw.
My hands are covered in scratches, but bite inhibition is super important, and we work on this all the time. Bite inhibition to me is him accepting human hand inside his mouth, so our objective here is to be gentle. His definition of "gentle" can be a bit off mark at times but it's work in progress, and overall I am happy so far. I am getting fairly confident in my ability to take anything out of his mouth or to check his teeth without losing a finger.
We take him to places where he meets humans. He is OK with humans, but I can't say that he is really interested in them. He is very interested in their boots or shoelaces, but as far as getting hugs and being fussed over - I think he'll be a typical Ridgeback, and find all this quite unnecessary.
And here are some video highlights from Puppy Playtime and our recall training sessions:
The boy started attending "Puppy Playtime" sessions. These are not training classes, but rather just supervised play dates with other puppies. He's been to 3 sessions.
On the first - he spent most of time either hiding behind chairs, or trying to engage with others but inevitably being chased by some huge ones back to the chairs.
On the second - he felt a lot more confident, played and ran around with some of them, while staying away from the big ones. Especially from an enormous St Bernard.
On the third - feeling all confident, he was bravely engaging with all puppies there, including the big ones, to the point where the trainer had to step in and calm him down a little. The enormous St Bernard wasn't there though.
Next session on Monday... I suspect that the huge baby St Bernard, who is by far the biggest one there and the bully of the class, will have to discover the Ridgeback way of playing, it will be interesting to see how it goes. Ari (our previous RR) enjoyed wrestling with Newfoundlands and St Bernards, and usually had the upper hand, thanks to much higher agility.
We started practicing recall and loose leash walking. So far, better success with recall.
House training is going well, no accidents inside lately. He can hold longer now and asks when he needs to be taken outside.
Getting on the counters is a challenge.. well, standing up on hind legs, and looking what's there on the counter. Especially when it's time to have a meal. This is unexpected for us - I guess we were spoiled by Ari who never did this, even during his craziest teenage periods. So, we ordered a "pet corrector" which is essentially a little can of compressed air, with which you can make hissing noise. Both the can, and the noise it makes, have absolutely no effect on Miles. In fact, it all ended up being an encouragement, I am sure, because we couldn't help laughing at Miles's reaction to this hissing thing, which was a mildly surprised look - while standing up with his front legs on the counter - and then turning attention back to exploring the counter itself.
We introduced him to The Dremmel, and while he remains very suspicious of it - there is progress, yesterday we were able to trim one paw.
My hands are covered in scratches, but bite inhibition is super important, and we work on this all the time. Bite inhibition to me is him accepting human hand inside his mouth, so our objective here is to be gentle. His definition of "gentle" can be a bit off mark at times
but it's work in progress, and overall I am happy so far. I am getting fairly confident in my ability to take anything out of his mouth or to check his teeth without losing a finger.We take him to places where he meets humans. He is OK with humans, but I can't say that he is really interested in them. He is very interested in their boots or shoelaces, but as far as getting hugs and being fussed over - I think he'll be a typical Ridgeback, and find all this quite unnecessary.
And here are some video highlights from Puppy Playtime and our recall training sessions:
