Training Wally

Well, I don't remember if I posted or not that we have a new family member. His name is Wally and he's freaking adorable. He come home when he was about 10 weeks old. He's a Welsh Pembroke Corgi. His coloring is red and white. He's a sweetie, but he's definitely your typical mischievous puppy!

I'd been calling around and calling around looking for training for him. I finally found someone. She has a new to the business even though she's been doing it with her family for years. Her business is called Tip Top Dog Training. So far I like our trainer. She's come to our house once and I've been working with the plan that she gave me. We'll meet again next week to see how he's progressed and go from there. I love that her philosophy of dog training is very positive. She uses the clicker method for training dogs. I can definitely see already that Wally is going to do well with this kind of training. He seems very smart and quick to catch on.

We did have to start with a bit of punishment which neither I nor the trainer were thrilled with. But unfortunately Wally thinks he's running the show at this point. He's been nipping quite a bit and was not caring much about time-outs alone as a method for curbing the nipping. So when he nips I have to hold him down and say "Enough". Once he stops trying to get up and/or nip at me he's allowed to get up. Any jumping on or nipping at Boo and he's immediately crated. This results in a puppy who is carried to his crate practically every other minute that he is out of it! But with consistency Wally will get better and learn to keep himself under control when he's out so that he doesn't have to go to his crate.

It's really nice having one on one instruction right now. After another session at the house we will likely resume lessons at her facility. This will be great because she has a couple of different dogs that will be good for helping to socialize Wally and help him learn his "doggy manners" when it comes to interacting with his own species. Also, this will help him with bite inhibition.

Boo was not sure at all about Wally when we first brought him home. He has come a long way, and I mean a really long way! He loves Wally. He loves to give him biscuits. And if he was allowed shoes, legos, and anything else you can think of! I can see that they're going to be great friends. I'm so glad that we got a puppy while Ayden is so young. He was starting to develop a fear of dogs and I definitely don't want him to grow up afraid of dogs.

Puppy training is time consuming. Wow. I mean, really time consuming. But it is fun too. I enjoy our sessions together. They are a kind of stress relief for me. Already I can see how much Wally adds to this family. I think once he's properly trained he will be a million times more enjoyable than he already is. Getting a puppy was a huge decision and I'm so glad that we took the plunge!