Long dry spell

Here's Prim chewing on her cow's ear.

Once again, it's ben a while since I posted. I really do need to get more organized about writing. I think perhaps the desire to help get Gidget and her puppies adopted was such a driving force on the other blog that I was better at posting then and while I really would like to have a record of how things are going with Prim, it just doesn't have the same urgency.

While I am working on behaviors each day (sit, down, nose touch to hand and target stick, come, attention, "it's yer choice", etc,  oh, and "roll over") my primary goals are potty training and socialization. We're doing better on the potty training. She's 4 months old so we should be:-) We have caught her every time for the past 2 days. She had an accident in the ex pen 3 days ago. I had just taken her out and tried to get her to poop but she wouldn't go. Came back in and within 2 minutes she had pooped in the pen:-(. She seems to know that when I take her out on the leash and take her to her potty spot, that she is supposed to pee. Probably 80-90% of the time she'll go. She is still so irregular with her poop schedule that It's hard for me to know how long to give her. I could spend most of the day standing outside trying to get her to poop. I've been keeping her in the crate rather than the ex pen more often to help prevent accidents. And I am still keeping my chart of every time she eats, pees and poops. And can see no discernable pattern.

We've been going to puppy classes. Next Tuesday is our last class. She's doing really well. Still pretty shy and won't go to our trainer or take treats from her (at least in class last Tuesday). I was really proud of her when we worked on loose leash walking. She's not a puller, at least in class. Now, she will pull in the yard when on leash but mostly will loosen it once she realizes she isn't going to get anywhere if she continues. I'll use Premack when she does loosen it and let her go see whatever it was that interested her.

I'm also taking her to Brinkley's Rally classes on Thursday evenings. We were outside last night and I took her out of the crate about halfway through the class and let her wander around on leash. She actually went up a sniffed the shoes of one of my classmates. AND, she took a treat from our trainer! Seems that there is hope for her yet.

But then we try to walk in the front yard or, heaven forbid, in the road, and we are reduced to a quivering, terrified mess. I tried carrying her down the street the other day. We went to the end of the street (I also had Brinkley with me) and I put her down on the ground to walk back. She evidently knows which side of the street we live on. We were on the opposite side of the street walking back and she kept trying to get to our side of the street, dont' think she knew which house it was, just wanted to get to that side. All in all, not very promising but we'll just keep at it. I guess I am a bit encouraged about the areas in which she has improved.

It's difficult for me to remember what happened with Brinkley although it wouldn't be a guideline for Prim as she is so very different from him. She does love him though. He's actually gotten much more playful with her. And he doesn't growl nearly as much when she gets in his face. We'll just have to see how she is when he reached maturity. Hopefully they'll be good friends for life.