Sitting Pretty

Cupcake is learning quickly. She turned 10 weeks old this past Tuesday (28th), and she is about 95% potty trained. I say that because she has not had a single accident since last Friday, and she's consistent in asking to go out when she needs to poop... still she IS only 10 weeks so I expect a few more weeks of extra positive reinforcement are in order before I can count her 100% trained.

Usually she gets her food and water picked up at 7pm, and she gets a last potty break/walk at 8:30. She goes to bed as soon as she's in from that trip. Then she sleeps through the night in her crate with no accidents, waking around 7:30am for her morning walk/potty trip.

The most exciting thing is that she's finally gone from the baby mental state to that of a toddler. What I mean by that is that she's now teachable! She has begun learning come, and sit, and is doing great with them. She is also learning "out" (as in get out of my kitchen) and of course the big one "no bite".

The big problem with our little girl is that she is a dominant dog. More then that she is hyper alert and gets distracted very easily. The commands we are working on she does very well with indoors but does awful outdoors where any little sound can cause her to flip around to figure out what it is. I think patience and consistancy will be key with it all, she IS still very young and with a little luck we can train her to focus. I'm hopeful that doing so will not be too difficult, but unfortunatly it's a personality trait vs a learned behavior so it will take a lot of work.

The other day the Kiddo received a card in the mail from his Great Grandma C. It was a pleasant surprise. In it she wrote how proud she was of him for how he's grown and how brave he is for taking his shots every day to help with it. His grin was ear to ear as I read that to him. She also sent a check and said that he could spend it on himself or his puppy. He said to me "mommy, can we buy Cupcake a shirt?"

Not a bad idea kiddo!! She IS permitted by law to go places most dogs aren't (service dog privilages) and the more places we take her the calmer she'll be with new situations. Last week we took her with us to our nephews football game. Normally posted as a "no dogs" area, Cupcake is aloud to be there. She did amazing. She curled up between our chairs and calmly laid there playing with her chew toy regardless of the cheering and noise. Still, to avoid getting harassed about it (and to save us having to explain) it would be a good idea to get a "working dog in training please ask to pet) vest for her (a "shirt"). I did some research, found a relatively inexpensive place to buy one and let the Kiddo pick the color. He is very excited that we are getting her exactly what he wanted, and I am happy that it will have the information written on it that we need displayed. Not to mention an attached medic alert tag with his information.

Two birds, one stone... and one very cute dog who is learning fast.