Our leave it command is getting a whole lot better, but we still make mistakes, especially with his old squeaky toy and his old kong. Those toys have been declared off limits for him, ever since he outgrew his puppy kong and he tore up his squeaky toy. I figured they'd make good leave it items from now on. We have continued to work on retrieving without the object being thrown. Significantly less interesting for him. He can now pick up a really boring, generic rubber ring on cue! Not consistently yet, but we're getting there.
Duke is learning 5 minute stays in his "place" and it is definitely helping him with house manners. It's kinda cute how he just looks so expectant when he is lying there. Our work is rewarded. Duke gets a nice slab of turkey breast for performing his stay, and everyone else gets an evening free of chaos. He still has some "episodes" where he decides it's more fun to run around, but they are diminishing with an increase in structure. He just "graduated" from both puppy class and basic obedience, and his S.T.A.R puppy medallion should be coming in the mail any day now. His trainer said he looked and behaved more "manly" this week, which is saying alot considering he's a ramubuctious tween at 7 months. I bought him a "manly" collar to go compliment his little "coming of age". Now we will move on to off-leash training, a whole new challenge for everyone.
Some commands we will work on these next few weeks:
heel - 15-20 step clicks in familiar environment, 2 step clicks in unfamiliar
place - get those 5 minute stays consecutive, then attach a verbal command
leave it - set up temptations on his walk
pull - he actually has no problem pulling in tug, it's really about the out command
get it - a hand delivery would be nice (right now I only expected him to pick up the object and drop it)
shake - just cute, no functional service dog value
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