Roxie's Great Success!

Roxie has been working on her "place" command yesterday & today. She is doing EXCELLENT! She has worked up to staying on her mat for about 45 minutes (continuous). I've also placed shoes, magazines, socks, & such around her while she's on her place as distraction to entice her to move off. She's done very well in learning not to pick up things that are not toys. She's also stayed on her place while I go out of her sight for 20-30 seconds. Roxie went with me today to pick up Lucy, a 5 month old Boxer puppy that is just visiting for a week while her mom & dad are out of town. Miss Roxie has taken quite an interest in Lucy. She doesn't want to play with Lucy, which is unfortunate for Lucy, she just wants to sit next to her & sniff her. But hey, that's progress! They're quite the cute pair.
As well as working on her "place" command, Roxie has learned to hold her heel with automatic sits, sit (stays), down at the left side, go from a down to a sit at the left side, come & sit nicely for praise. Some of the informal commands she is learning include, "kennel", "no", "let's go", "wait", "load up" & of course "go potty". Speaking of. . . she has consistently been ringing the potty bell and she is going out immediately for #1 or #2. Roxie wins the award for learning & applying the use of the potty bell the fastest of any dog I have ever taught. YEA ROXIE!!

Since the weather was so great this afternoon we also had a long playtime outside. We threw the ball, laid in the sun & sniffed all the good smell..... well "we" didn't; they did. Roxie is still very nervous with all the other dogs running & playing around her. She's not quite ready to interact but she's not hiding behind me like she was before & she isn't whining nervously to just be around them. She just watches with great curiosity. We're taking it one day at a time but she's coming along very nicely!!