Lottie's Diary - training diary of a Chesapeake Bay Retriever

Lottie has not had a dummy thrown for her since last week and was very pleased to see me get the dummy out yesterday. I threw a white plastic dummy for the first time, and she was really keen to chase after it and carry it around. The weather has changed and is cool and wet, but the rain did not dampen her enthusiasm at all.

However, it did take a little encouragement to get her to bring the dummy in to me, and I suspect she would rather like to take the dummy into a private place and get to know it better!

Lottie aged nine and a half wks

Her silhouette is already becoming a little more 'grown up'

A nice way to stop jumping up within the family is to turn your back on the puppy and ignore it, but I have found this less effective in the past in preventing jumping up at visitors. Puppies seem to quickly learn that guests will reward inappropriate behaviour and I don’t find it very convenient to have to 'brief' all our visitors on our puppy procedures before letting them through the door.

We are therefore discouraging Lottie from jumping on guests with a firm ‘no’ at the same time as placing her back down on the floor and rewarding her with a little piece of food as soon as more polite behaviour is restored.

Physically Lottie is stronger, and more lively Her face looks a little more angular and her eyes have now turned a golden brown. She has now started galloping really fast around the patio and is much more steady and balanced on her feet.

Over the next few days I will be getting Lottie used to spending a little time in the kennel with the other dogs.

she would rather like to keep the dummy for herself...

For the time being, I will only throw the dummy in a confined space, in the hall for example or in a corner of the garden where I can intercept her on her return.

Lottie's eyes are now

golden brown

The recall is also going very well, and I am rewarding her with food on only about half of the times I call her name.

I have bought Lottie a flat collar which she has been wearing for a couple of days, this is to get her used to having something around her neck in preparation for lead training. It doesn’t bother her at all and she hasn’t made any attempt to scratch or chew at it.

Several more visitors have been to see Lottie over the last few days, and she is very happy to greet people. Like most puppies she is keen to jump up and scrabble at people’s legs and we are discouraging this.

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