Week 5 of puppy school

Just before we left for puppy school I managed to get the final bits of ice out of the freezer, cleaned up and switched it back on. It has taken 24 hours and I suspect that half the stuff in the cool box will now need to go to the tip :-(

Rodders asked to go out in to the garden just as I was about to get my coat and wellies on so I was able to do it in peace. Once in a slipped his lead on and we went out to the car. For some reason he cried for the first five minutes today.

Once there we spotted a new puppy in the car park, a 12 week old red setter called Juno, so we went over to say hello. This is his first week out on a lead so he was happy to see another puppy and kept batting Rodders with his paw. Rodders didn't seem to mind! Tarka joined us and then Tinker. Sam finished with the previous class and called us in to the hall, just as we were doing sit and wait at the door the little black cocker spaniel that Pete brought to class a couple of weeks ago joined us but this time with her owner.

To start with we just had the dogs sat with us while Sam introduced Juno and his opener. We then made our way out to the car park again and swapped puppies and handed out treats. Rodders still spends half his time looking to see where I am, possibly because the other puppies treats are too big for him, but he is getting better.

Then it was on to the field for some heel and sit and heel and down, Rodders still doesn't like going down and as the class wore on he was getting a bit snappy so earnt a good few checks. He did much better at slalom through the other dogs but is easily distracted and moves out of sit. When we moved on to playing with their tuggies and practicing leave he was a bit of a monkey and Sam thinks we need to move on from the puppy lead this week to have more control. She thinks we should also practice this at home with his lead on.

He didn't do so well at sit and wait out on the field today and Sam had to hold him while I walked away. We didn't even try sit and stay as he was being such a monkey so he had to be held in the down for about 5 minutes while the other puppy's did it (apart from Juno, bit much at a first lesson!)

We moved on to the agility course and Rodders did great at the jumps, the tunnel (which he loves) and the A Frame (much more confident this week) so we could have an agility dog in the making!

We walked back to the hall with the puppies at heel before doing the down command again. Rodders was better at this by the end of the day but we are going to need to practice this too. This was Tarka's last week at Puppy Class and she moves on to the lesson before us from next week.

Sam mentioned that his sit and wait at the door is much better and can see that we have been practicing. She also said there are some great pictures at the vets from Wednesday night and we had a laugh about Appa holding off the other dogs.

Back in the car Rodders was fine on the way home.