Bailey's Progress Report

Mmmmm...STEAK!

Training:

We are seeing some improvements with Bailey’s training. This past Tuesday was a gorgeous day so we spent a lot of time outside. We walked to a nearby park, walked the trail there & jogged some of the way back. When we got home we decided to do a little bit of training on a small grassy area we have outside our apartment. Just last week, grass was enough to keep her distracted to the point where she wanted to ignore us. She has showed some improvement with come and stay. I even got her to come straight to me while passing by her bag of treats (a HUGE accomplishment)! She is doing better with stay, but only if there are no distractions.

Potty Training:

We are making a little bit of progress in this area. She had her first poop accident in the house this week (granted, this was while we were out for 10 hours for work...so I shouldn’t be very disappointed). She has been using her potty pads better and hasn’t been chewing them up as much. She still isn’t good about letting us know she needs to go out. We have seen her sniff around in front of the door a few times. We have to watch her SO closely or we’ll miss it. She doesn’t bark or whine. She just sniffs at the door for a few seconds then she’ll start sniffing elsewhere. This is fine if we’re in the living room...not so fine if I’m cooking dinner :-/ Sometimes she’ll go stand at the glass sliding doors that lead to our balcony. I’m never sure if she just wants us to open it so she can go out there or if she needs to go. We were just opening it so she could go out. She has had 2 accidents out there so we take her out first, then we’ll let her play on the balcony if she still wants.

Remember the Nature’s Miracle mentioned in Bailey’s last progress report? Unfortunately, we’ve already finished the whole bottle! Bailey pees a lot! Anyway, I was talking to a friend about it & she said she started out using it but switched to water & vinegar (1 part vinegar:3 parts water). She said it worked better for her & her dog was never able to smell where she had gone before. I think I’m going to give this a shot. While I like the nice clean smell the Nature’s Miracle has...you can only smell it for a few minutes. At the rate we’re going, we would be spending about $26 a month just for cleaning up her accidents. $1 a month sounds a lot better to me! I’ll be sure to post about how it’s working in next week’s progress report.

Socialization:

We’ve seen small improvements with Bailey around other dogs in our complex. There’s a beautiful Shar-pei Bordeaux mix that lives near us. Her name is Harper and Bailey was terrified of her the first time they met. We saw her out walking again this week and of course Bailey got scared. I picked her up so she could have a chance to sniff her and investigate without feeling so tiny. She did a lot better. When I put her down, she sniffed her for a second. When Harper leaned down to sniff Bailey, she ran behind Josh. It was so adorable. I know this was just a small improvement but I was just glad to see progress since she doesn’t see other dogs on a regular basis right now. Yesterday while I was walking her we ran into two small dogs. She acted scared a little bit then she warmed up to them. It’s kind of cute. She’ll hid behind me or Josh, then kind of peek between our legs. Once she sniffs them a little and licks them a time or two she’s fine unless they make sudden movements toward her...then we start all over. It’s very easy to tell when she’s comfortable with them...she starts barking & wagging her tail. Haha.

She’s also showing a little improvement with people. She still goes crazy if a stranger talks to her or wants to show her attention. She is improving with the people that don’t want anything to do with her. She used to bark & whine if they didn’t pet her. She still pulls on her leash to get to them but if we give her a little tug she will come along. She looks back at them until they’re out of sight or something else catches her attention, but she hasn’t been so vocal about it. Again, baby steps :-)

I know once we get her in a puppy kindergarten class we will see improvements in these areas. I found one that works with our schedule that I like but they only have classes every 10 weeks. The last class started in April. I don’t think I want to wait that long :-/ I have found one that starts the week after we close on our house. We're leaning toward that one now, of course we'll look into it a little more before deciding for sure.

 Sitting by the bedroom door. She knows Josh in still in there sleeping. Cute :-)

Bailey was running toward me while I was on the floor. I was trying to take a picture and she tried to bite at the camera. So...a bit of a funny pic of the inside of her mouth is what I got.