Its been a while

Holy cow I am bad about keeping this thing updated!



Well its been a little over a month since we picked Rowan up! I can't believe how fast time is flying! So recap of the last month:



Rowan is now fully crate trained. He picked that up within a little over a week, such a good boy! Potty training is pretty much there. The only time he has accidents in the past few weeks, is when Justin isn't paying attention, grrrr, MEN. They just don't get it. Justin is learning quickly though. He is still having trouble understanding the fact that the pups attention span is about 3 seconds, and that just saying a command without the pups focus is going to do absolutely nothing. You can't really blame him though, Justin, like the majority of the worlds population, he has never been trained to train young animals. Not an easy task. I did get him to read our puppy books, and hopefully work will allow him to come to a few classes.

We started puppy kindergarten this week. First class was without pup, just a quick overview of whats to come. Apparently they are going to teach him sit (he has known that one since about 4 weeks old), down (had that one figured out after a 5 minute session with the clicker), come (that one could still use a little work), and best of all walking on a loose leash. I have to admit that I have NO idea how to get him to do that, so I'm looking forward to that part. He is probably about 30 lbs at this point and can already drag me around! He is fairly good, but if there is any kind of distraction, kids on bikes, other dogs, pieces of paper, tiny specks of dirt on the side walk, its game over. Then I look like an animal beater/psychopath, because my dog is choking to death while I shake a treat, plastic bag, squeaky toy ANYTHING while saying "puppy, R0wan, PUPS, ROWAN, lookie, OOOOO!" and making any kind of odd noise, including fart noises, to get his focus. So yeah, that one needs work. But the "leave it" command works wonders.

He is still as sweet and cuddly as ever, but man he has really hit a naughty stage. I would compare it to a child going through the "terrible twos". My once responsive, sensitive, little boy, is now brave, independent, and DEAF. Which I am kind of happy about, because now he is really not afraid of anything, we had a little problem with shiny stainless steal??, and some other random things. Now, not so much. Especially sounds. He isn't afraid of anything! Not the vacuum, not the dremmel, not the baby gates falling down, which make me pee my pants. We have pergo floors and everything is louder on them. Just the other day I had the baby gate on the stairs kind of at an angle, so the cat can jump over it easier, and picked Rowan up over the gate and tried to get him to come upstairs. Well the cat was still downstairs and Rowan wasn't having it, so he turned around, slid down the baby gate, which also went crashing to the floor, and didn't even FLINCH. I mean not even a twitch or glance back! He just looked proud and pranced off to find the cat...But overall he is a pretty mellow boy. He has his moments of terror, when he doesn't listen to damn thing and does laps around the yard at mach 1, but really he is a wonderful little boy!


So, yeah he's growin up. In no time he is going to be ready for the show ring! Allison, who has his sister, Tilda, just moved out to Colorado and we are going to do a few conformation classes starting next Tuesday! Should be a riot. I'll be sure to post about that!